An "Accelerating the End of the Earth" Plan — a speculative design piece that stages hope symbols as end-of-world machinery.
Context:
16th CAU Pi Exhibition · "Flexibility"
Period:
Jan - Mar 2023
Role:
Solo
Concept
3D
Mockup
Exhibit
Tools:
Cinema 4D
Octane Render
3D Printing
Mockups
Reframe · 01
Spaceship,
as escape engine.
Usually read as progress or rescue. In DOOMED it's the vehicle that lets humans leave faster, so the planet can be written off sooner.
Reframing · symbol → instrument
Reframe · 01
Spaceship,
as escape engine.
Usually read as progress or rescue. In DOOMED it's the vehicle that lets humans leave faster, so the planet can be written off sooner.
Reframing · symbol → instrument
Reframe · 02
Noah's Ark,
as selection device.
Usually read as salvation. Here it becomes the selection question: who gets a seat, and what — or who — is left behind when the vessel leaves.
Reframing · salvation → triage
Reframe · 03
Discovery,
not delivery.
No slogan, no caption explaining the concern. Viewers arrive at the climate reading on their own, once they notice what the familiar symbols are being asked to do.
Mode · contradiction → recognition
02
Chapter — Concept Film
03
Chapter — From Pixel to Object
3D Printing
3D Printing
Mockups
Mockups
Sanding
Sanding
Puttying
Puttying
Spray Painting
Spray Painting
04
Chapter — Outside Reception
The work didn't just live
in the gallery.
Two reads
from the field.
Alongside the in-gallery response, two motion graphics practitioners gave the work a closer look during the exhibition. That was useful as a sanity check on the parts that are hardest to judge from the inside — craft level and whether the films read as intended to people who work in the medium.
The notes below are paraphrased, not pull quotes. They're included because, for a solo student project, external motion graphics feedback carried more weight on technical quality than my own read could.
Reviewer · 01
Undesigned Museum
motion graphics studio
Visited the exhibition in person and gave positive notes on the 3D craft — particularly around surface quality and the overall render fidelity.
Reviewer · 02
Kim Geuryun
motion graphics director
Reviewed the two films and commented on the visual quality. Feedback covered pacing, lighting decisions, and what the second film was doing well in its layered structure.
Takeaways.
A rendered film reads as fiction. An object in a room reads as a prototype — something that could, in theory, get built. That shift was the reason I went past the screen into a physical mockup (3D print, sanding, surfacer, paint). For a speculative piece arguing "this plan is already on the table," the medium had to carry part of the argument.
In the gallery the piece didn't need explaining. Visitors read the inversion on their own, and several told me it made the climate concern feel more present than a straight warning would have. That was the check on whether letting the audience discover the message actually worked outside my own head.
Selected for the 16th Chung-Ang Pi Exhibition, "Flexibility: the End of Average" (Mar 7–13, 2023). On-site visit from motion graphics studio Undesigned Museum, with positive notes on the 3D craft. Motion graphics director Kim Geuryun gave feedback on the films and commented on the visual quality.
Sydney Hong
Seoul, KR
© Sydney Hong 2026 — Portfolio