On the wall is a large drawing 5 feet tall and 6 1/2 feet wide executed in graphite. The drawing is not framed, but is attached to the wall with two white sticks running along the edges. In front of the drawing stands a large plinth, 3 feet tall, 2 feet deep, and the exact width of the drawing.

In the words of the artist:

Several clay sculptures hold the shape of computational parts. They rest amidst a bed of bentonite sand, a material derived from volcanic ash that has been used by humans for a myriad of purposes—from flushing toxins from the skin to lining landfills, from lubricating drilling equipment to holding moisture in crop soil. In closer view, these sculptures reveal organic imperfections quite opposite of the exact replicability of devices and data which set forth the digital revolution. Through the ancient medium and the practice of hand-building, the artist explores a sensuous re-mediation of the standardized yet obscured materiality of computation as we know it today.

Forming the backdrop is a wall drawing which depicts a stratified view of the Earth. Mountain and mine are stacked atop one another, holding between them layers of extractable and exhausted matter as well as human and plant beings, all interrelated through the production and consumption of computational technology. The drawing’s fabulist style is inspired by early Chinese surveys of natural phenomena, such as the Classic of Mountain and Seas and Brush Talks from Dream Brook, that are as mythical as they are analytical.

The artwork’s title draws from a Taoist allegory called《沧海桑田》Cang Hai Sang Thien. In the tale, Ma Ku, the deity of immortality, remarks that she has seen the East Sea turn into mulberry fields three times and wonders if it will change again. While technological progress is commonly measured along a linear trajectory, Zhang’s work focuses on its earthly context through the lens of cyclical time. Taken together, the artwork emphasizes the historical relationship of computation and control, while tending toward spiritual resolve between the ebbs and flows of ecological possibility.