The visual in ‘The Grey Area in the Cape Winelands’ is the result of an intricate live feedback nodal network system developed using motion design software. In the design space, an atmosphere of dust particles moving in a light breeze is simulated. In the centre of that space is a cube made of RGB light. In front of the cube is a camera, which records only the front face, as if at eye level – a square frame.

However, the cube is not set to be visible. As the particles move through the cube, the colours interact in various blending modes. Those colourful interactions are visible. The addition of the camera in its position and its relation to the network are what make this visual.

The projection is the outcome of an interdisciplinary research project looking at our species’ varied relationship with and perceptive abilities of the natural and invisible world.

Chelsea Holland is an independent interdisciplinary researcher, writer and creative practitioner from the Cape Winelands district. She is currently a creative consultant as well as a design lecturer for a South African-owned private university in Stellenbosch, where she emphasises the role of responsibility in emerging cultural practitioners.

Fascinated by ethnobotany, neuroscience, quantum physics and the Cape fynbos bioregion, her creative practice is personal and professional. As a creative practitioner, the question of how complex theory can be translated to the public is centred in all endeavours. Working in the fields of Visual communication, the basis of all creative undertakings or explorations is perception – specifically, how can we actually begin to see things differently rather than just agree with a theory?

Additionally, Holland runs a botanical styling business, and most Sundays you can find her walking the grounds of Spier observing the land as it slowly regenerates.