Alivia Senevoravong

Final Communion

Exploring the connections between life and death through the use of performative ritualistic practices. This installation immerses the audience into a communion with the deceased in order to recieve fortune from spirits.

Breaking bread with someone has been one of the oldest forms of ritual practices that we still participate in during modern times. The ritual provides a sense of warmth, hospitality, and comfort while maintaining the traditional communion emotion.

Details

Ritual: When seated in front of the altar, the participant takes food from the top tier and adds it to their plate while separating half of the food and placing it in the skull of the deceased person. Any liquid taken from the lower tier is shared into a family heirloom chalice. The participant eats their meal and says their goodbyes. At the end of the meal, the participant seals the skull and food with in candle wax to be buried.

Aroma: The aroma when seated is a combination of whichever herbs and foods the participant chooses to share with their loved one. In the photos the scents can be narrowed down to green onion, fish sauce, lemongrass, and aged greens.

Sustainable Soap

Exploring sustainability in it's freshest form, I looked to nature's way of packaging products. This soap comes inside of a real orange peel making the stucture that the soap is contained within completely biodegradable and compostable.

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Details

Aroma: The scent is a combination of an aloe infused soap base with homemade natural orange scent and peels within the soap. It's packaging inside of the orange peel enhances the scent even more.

Portal of Rebirth Part One

Combining the use of unnatural elements, the cyclical patterns of nature are replicated in a columnal portal structure that transports participants into another world. The transparent material and projected light in the dark room removes the users spatial sense to further elevate the experience. Technology and the abnormal are interwoven with what humans deem to be natural to blur the lines between the two.

A Collaboration with Rego

The reflections of the surfaces mimic spider webs, one of the stronger depictions of circular patterns in nature. The shadows of the material on the wall replicate the texture of insect wings. These elements lift the space and transform a familiar material into something enchanting and inviting.

This is the first visitation of this idea of a portal to another dimension. The ideas came from exploring reoccuring cyclical patterns and our connections to nature using mushrooms as the subject of what connects us to our natural counterparts.

Details

Structure: The portal hangs in a dark large room above a dark cloth. The portal is about 8-9 feet tall and 3-4 feet in diameter. The outer material includes an entrance that closes seamlessly.

Lighting: In the dark room, the only light comes from a distance, a projection of saturated images of nature blending into each other. The images aren't clear but the light and color is captured in the folds of the portal.

Sound: Handmade windchimes by Rego are used to depict timelessness because of windchimes lack of rhythm.

Aroma: The scent is best noticeable when inside the portal and is made up of dried mushrooms.

Portal of Rebirth Part Two

Expanding from the ideas in the first part of this portal, the design is reimagined in a larger scale installation representative of the destination after the portal. A digital ecosystem is created in this demonstration as a proposal for a larger installation of the project.

LongDocumentation.mov

The installation consists of an ecosystem with live plants and a snake, reminiscent of the ouroboros, to idealize and showcase the roots of humanity. Exploding out of the structure the installation is expanded into the whole room encompassing the participants in a digital expedition through the use of projection onto the ceiling, bleeding onto the walls.

Ideally, the installation would be in a medium sized room with the cylindrical ecosystem in the center. The surrounding material would be a seamless glass cylinder. Mats would be provided for participants to lay down and lose themselves in the installation. The portal from the first visitation of the project would be redesigned sideways as a tunnel into the room. Upon entering the room, motion sensors turn the installation on revealing the light inside the ecosystem and the ceiling projections. The motion sensors are aimed to mimic the way mushrooms use mycelium in forests to let trees know that people are in the forest.

Details

Sound: The sound is the electronic representation of the sound mushrooms make. Synthesizers are attached to mushrooms with technology that transfers biodata to sound. The cells of the plant is read and redirected into music.

Aroma: The scent from the first iteration is reused in this final piece; dried mushrooms to elevate the space in an upwards motion directing the participants attention to the visuals on the ceiling.

Video: The video in this installation has changed slightly in content but not in theme. The new video is made as a loop with the technique of datamoshing to mimic psychadelic hallucinogenic effects that mushrooms can have on people. This develops the enchanting interdimensional feeling that going through a portal would bring.

Other Explorations

Capturing the feeling of childhood play, the nostalgia machine is an immersive headpiece with a translucent front panel to allow exterior light illuminate the interior of the box. The aroma inside is of crayons and buttered popcorn.

Blurring the lines of gender expression, this face mask displays the combination of femininity and masculinity. It's scented with what I feel is the most androgyneous body soap-- Irish Spring.

After creating Fallon an alter ego avatar persona, this harness was made to express Fallon's personality. It's scented with dark woods and smoke.

Contact Me

Instagram: @pixel.liv

Email: asenevor@pratt.edu

senevoravong.com

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