THE SITUATION IS LIQUID A new realm of pure sensation garnered her being.

Liquid crystal holographic waterfalls surged into rivers. Liquid held everything together and became a way to navigate thoughts, a way to feel. A neoJehovah paradise. Lacquered, blackberry shine hinged onto objects, pulsating with a techno-sublime. This world went beyond the graphics of second life or any hyper real fantasies of the past 20 years. This world encompassed the future-present1 where things can be understood at the edge of time where they unfold and evolve before our eyes. Liquid as a manifestation of desire, wet look, oiled up bodies, plasma. Liquid is a muse but also a force. Flows and surfaces, light emitting through a complicated force of liquid crystals, mesmerising if we ever stop to think about it. Understanding liquid in all its forms. An energy and an element obsessed over in the digitalverse as blobs, gifs and squiggles. Hydraulics that keep us locked into the edge of ever-expanding technologies and obsessive aesthetic complexities. "With well-designed networks, we give our creativity the guidance of a framework, to help its creativity flow through those channels. The rediscovering of liminal experience is the appeal. For people who dont have some sort of spiritual practice, technological change is the thing that comes closest to the experience of the unreal." 2 Liquid as time, the edge of technology where at 10,000 frames per second the speed of the cameras exposes us to a hidden world of slow-mo and beauty. Scientists call this phenomenon the coalescence cascade3 the moment where a droplet of liquid makes contact with another liquid to the eye becomes solid.. This realm of water in slowed down time, (which is actually caught by super fast cameras) is a mode of working at home in advertising. Does this vision of water caught at the edge of technology create a spiritual zone, the same that Rothstein speaks of being liminal experience? This instant where the magical invisibility of water is unlocked through technological potential is somehow meaningful to us. A kind of anti-still life, it represents a place where nature and technology interlock to show the potential of a common element. This technique as used in advertising possesses a hypnotic, sexual undertone, definitely linking liquid as a signifier of the ultimate seductive force in combination with a particular product or where the product is the liquid itself, i.e liquid and milk chocolate pouring into the solid ice cream. The intricate web of real/unreal unravels in this world of liquid where most HD liquids we see are not actually real and then when we film water or real liquids they at once belong to the realm of the digital and become unreal also. This need for liquid to be manufactured to be perfectly represented usually in a point of elaborate splash or movement and lit expertly for maximum visual effect. One instance of this has been the branding of Coke Zero. This year I have noticed its violent sprays warping around coke bottles like a helix. The presence undoubtedly sinister, like sprays of blood emerging from a living being in slow motion. It never occurred to me until I saw this image
1

Rothstein, Adam, Guide to Future-Present Archetypes accessed 16 August 2012 http://rhizome.org/ editorial/tags/guide-to-future-present-archetypes/ 2 1 ibid The future-present is a concept being explored by Rothstein in a series of essays on rhizome.org. A website
dedicated to the edge of technology and the relationship between technology and art. Liquid as a complex and multiple form in our world seems apt to fit into the stream of ideas circulating the future-present. An eternal marvel, liquid is a quick thrill.
3

Discovery Channel Invisible Worlds In The Water 2010 Discovery Channel viewed at: http://www.heroturko.me/documentaries/670369-discovery-channel-invisible-worlds-in-the-water-720phdtv-x264-terra.html

in a Realflow animation reel, that it was not actually Coke Zero. It was a computer animation of Coke Zero, so perfectly achieved that it was realer than real and therefore took on a new height of simulation so perfect it became more bloodlike than coke. A wavering female voice with a soothing english accent claims: REALFLOW is the ultimate tool for creating both small and large scale fluids. It is very straightforward to use and produces stunning results.4 Kari Altman's work How to hide your Plasma (Handheld Icon Shapeshift for Liquid Chrystal Display) 2010 shows a 3D rendering of a large gallery room where a piece of plasma transforms itself into different shapes. Stretching and morphing into a myriad of blob formations, the light in the room shifts from dark to light. Altman suggests, " that there is a relatable and profound tactile or visual experience to be had, if only one could access the dimension in which to have it." This work creates a space that is present in the imagination and turns it into an almost reality. Time plays an interesting role in the world of digital liquids or any 3D digital rendering software. When scrolling through showreels of impressive Realflow animations on the net animators state rendering time as a badge of honor and when left unstated the comment section becomes inundated with speculations on how many days or hours the piece took to render. To me this seems to link with Altmans idea of the 'profound experience' that we are waiting to have and the moment of the future-present where imagination, technology and reality collide. We seem to be at a point where technology is flung at us through the realms of blockbuster films and advertising but our utopian hopes are dashed by systems, power and money. Gigabytes of HD footage quickly fill up hard drives and basic personal computers struggle to cope with the true capacity of HD that exists. In this bizarre catch 22 where technology dangles just out of reach. Art in this realm is a guarded world that people love to resist. I would even suggest that HD in loose liquid forms is a new medium. Aesthetics have flipped around, where things were once rooted in a past, in yellowing pages, collages from national geographics placed daintily on walls. The shift in time and cultural circumstances has put us at a point where to desire the HD and to mimic the ultimate forms of commercial power is a way to gain traction in art. This metallic world of sheens, mimics the very technologies that we engage with everyday, thin sheaves of plastic inside phones, titanium shells, high gloss blacks that coat flatscreen tvs. Imagine all these elements as the new paints of our time, HD as form of liquid, a new medium that carves out visions of the edge of our capabilities. What is it that we are really experiencing here? In this realm of the almost, the future-present, the liquid of HD twists and forms an endless realm of aesthetic possibility, where in reality it is all tied up in fragments of possible technologies and capital. The idea of turning the realm of techno-capitalism in an aesthetic form which we are calling HD for now, is an attempt to own the ownless, the dizzy heights. Liquid acts for us in different ways, as a metaphorical transformative understanding of our changing world but also a lament for what may be lost or possibly destroyed in the unknown future of technological gadgets and energy crisis. As a thought mechanism a way to be immersed in the flow of information and digital culture. Also as a new medium in liquid HD a new paint and expressive possibility that through digitization can take on the representation of different surfaces and real liquid forms.
4

Video explantion of how Realflow works http://support.nextlimit.com/display/rfkb/ The+RealFlow+Pipeline+Explained

The physical emergence of liquid is appealing alongside as being in the liquid flow of information, the archetypal rising from water is something that has been repeated in mythology ,film and advertising. the ultimate rebirth and sexual come hither, representing youth as an eternal concept, that there will always be another gorgeous model to rise from the water to view as an object, to decorate our lives.

At the end of the world there will only be liquid advertisement and gaseous desire. 5

suggested listening whilst reading this essay: http://soundcloud.com/nguzunguzu/water-bass-power http://soundcloud.com/fireforeffect/step-into-liquid-its-a-trap http://soundcloud.com/pootee/pootee-water-sports-mix

Harper, Adam Vapourwave and the Pop Art of the Virtual Plaza Dummy Magazine accessed 12.07.12 http://www.dummymag.com/features/2012/07/12/adam-harper-vaporwave/