Six-minute version; recorded 2007 on Maui, Hawai'i within gathering material for THE GLOBAL ELEMENT art installation project; soundscape in cooperation with composer Rama Gottfried (USA).
The original 30fps (HD) recording of 14 seconds on Hawai’i was slowed down in sophisticated digital post production processing to a new, hyper slo-mo original work piece of 14 minutes duration. It allows the viewer a discreet, tho almost scientific approach to study the motion manifestations of the elementry forces involved in such a constellation. In a sense alike to a traditional sea piece painting, moving at an extremely slow speed, it offers the viewer a contemplative, intimate experience of the waters in their motions.
The workpiece refers to Katsushika Hokusai’s famous woodcut ”Kanagawa-oki nami-ura” (The Great Wave off Kanagawa). An example of ukiyo-e, it was published sometime between 1830 and 1833 during the Edo Period as the first in Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei (富嶽三十六景), and is his most famous work. The wave is likely to be a large okinami – literally "wave of the open sea" and depicts an enormous wave threatening boats near the japanese prefecture, portraying the powers of Nature.
In his work, michael hawk sets the motion speed close to zero frames per second, or non-motion - in association with the Zen approach of experiencing reality bordering an open spacetime continuum.
