FLUIDIC – Sculpture in Motion

was an installation created for Hyundai’s advanced design center installed for Milan design week and created by Berlin-based design studio WHITEvoid. The sculpture consists of 12,000 translucent spheres that float over a pool of water. This piece of work covers the concepts of interactivity as well as immersion to certain extents which I have covered in the hyperessay.

FLUIDIC was an updated selected choice of work because I realized that what I had initially chosen, which was CLOUD installation by Wayne Garrett, didn’t quite have elements of technology integrated into art even though it carried traits of interactivity. Below is the research I did for Wayne Garrett’s CLOUD sculpture before my updated change.

Art + Sustainability | Singapore

CLOUD – Wayne Garrett

Created from 6000 incandescent light bulbs, CLOUD is an interactive sculpture by Canadian artists Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett. Viewers can interact with the CLOUD during exhibitions by ‘initiating impromptu collaborations’, working together as a collective to activate lights on its surface. The strings dangling down are pull chain switches that control the CLOUD’s canopy exterior.

Beneath its beautiful illuminating facade, the CLOUD’s underbelly exposes it’s industrial and utilitarian side. Supported with structural beams, exposed electronics and imperfect hand-bent steel, the ‘reveal’ breaks our initial impression of its delicate exterior aesthetic. Similarly, with the bulbs, there are actually LED bulbs beneath the surface of incandescent bulbs filtering the bright LEDs.

The interactive aspect of this sculpture draws viewers underneath it, hence exposing them to the awareness of domestic waste and the presence of insignificant objects within our urban environments. This has been portrayed through the surface of incandescent bulbs; as they are phased out in the EU and various other countries, the sculpture demonstrates the ongoing transitions in today’s technological advancements.

“the sculpture gains new meaning as a beacon of transitional technologies and changing futures – where are we going next?”

In the midst of this collaborative action that alters the CLOUD as a whole, viewers engaging with the pull chains become performers and puppeteers that are orchestrating a changing visual for others observing from a distance. The viewer’s experience and takeaways from this piece vary depending on their level of participation and observation.

CLOUD relies on the universal symbol of our environment (rain clouds) to communicate against cultural differences and language barriers.

interactivity

Relating this installation piece back to interactivity as discussed in class, the CLOUD supports the idea of behavioural art whereby the presence of people and participants makes the artwork complete. Without the human ‘factor’, the whole message about environmental sustainability and excess presence of insignificant objects will no longer be projected. Even though its purpose can still be communicated through displayed descriptions of the work, its impact would be a lot stronger through interactive experiences with the CLOUD up close.