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SANSUI
Art Installation
Beijing

C L O U D I

C L O U D I

We have been approached by the Beijing Cultural and Art Development Council to create an installation that accentuates the internal spaces of one of the most iconic buildings from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Bird's Nest, designed by the renowned Swiss duo Herzog & de Meuron, in collaboration with the world-renowned artist Ai Weiwei.

In this brief, I wanted to focus on two significant Chinese words: SAN and SUI, meaning mountain and water, respectively. Rather than creating a literal representation, I aimed to integrate these concepts into a unified object that embodies both elements and can be experienced by the audience through continuous movement.

With this in mind, the only approach was to study the optical illusion quality of the Moiré pattern. In mathematics, physics, and art, moiré patterns are large-scale interference patterns produced when a partially opaque ruled pattern with transparent gaps is overlaid on another similar pattern. For the moiré interference pattern to appear, the two patterns must not be completely identical but rather displaced, rotated, or have slightly different pitches.

Taking this into consideration, we designed mountain-like shapes using two perforated metal panels welded at a distance of 25 cm apart. We created ten of these geometries to represent a mountainscape. These structures are sprayed with a powder-coated white finish and composed randomly over or above each other. Each mountainous object has caster wheels underneath, allowing them to be placed freely within the space.

As visitors enter this area of the Bird's Nest stadium, they will observe the interference pattern of each mountain, which appears to represent liquid movement. This effect is best demonstrated in the accompanying video. The message here is that the mountain itself is made of water, symbolizing the intertwined nature of mountain and water on our planet, akin to the yin and yang dynamic.

I believe this project successfully creates movement without mechanical assistance, relying instead on the viewer's perception to induce a pattern of constant change that represents the essence of our natural world.

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