Hiraeth

Time is linear and irreversible, yet the internet — understood through the same logic — can be non-linear, allowing us to return easily to past spaces and states. The lifecycle of "news," "events," and "topics" grows ever shorter. Even existential threats like global warming cool from public attention within a year or two — much like Pompeii, a rapidly developing city buried in an instant by volcanic ash, soon forgotten. The work draws on internet big data to resurface trending keywords, letting viewers decide whether they encounter expired information or recovered fragments of memory. Visually borrowing the ancient city metaphor, news events appear as block-like architectural forms that fall intermittently from above, decomposing over time — their appearance and disappearance unfolding before the viewer's eyes. Through web searches across different countries and regions, the work retrieves historical trend keywords and renders them in a circular space as ceaselessly falling, heavy text — stacking, compressing, decomposing, vanishing — embodying an unending yearning and nostalgia for what can no longer be returned to or no longer exists.