LIVING
HOUSE - Light Installation
Concept drawings.
LIVING HOUSE installed at 550 Wuding Road, Shanghai. 2008.
Projection
unit behind each window.
LIVING
HOUSE - Light Installation
A
set of twelve windows on a building facade is presenting projections of living
fish on rice papers. Each window appears to contain two fish swimming
synchronized. It is only after longer observing that one realizes that shadows
of the same fish are projected twice from different sides.
After
the building had been empty for some time, the installation is presenting new
life inside to the people in neighbourhood of Wuding Road, Shanghai.
Materials:
Rice Paper, Glass, Wood, Electronic Equipment,
Size
of each projection unit: 0.8 m x 1 m x 1.6 m, Size of each window: 1.8 m x 2 m.
Big Eyes Fish Take the Lead in the Living House Light Installations
Bringing expertise from his previous work in product, furniture and interface design to the
table, Simon Husslein opened up his own design studio in Shanghai in 2007 after
graduating from the Royal College of Art in London. In his most recent projects, Husslein
“investigates optical illusions in relation to the surrounding space, time and light” and is now
testing the waters as a creative artist.
His latest light installation, Living House, is just that – an optical illusion. The new owners of
the building at 550 Wuding Road, Shanghai, approached Husslein with a request to bring
life to the long dormant building and to let the locals know that a renovation is on its way.
With only a small budget at hand and a longstanding Chinese tradition that served as
inspiration, Husslein transformed the twelve windows on the building’s façade into oversized
fish tanks, each containing “two fish swimming synchronized.” At least so it might appear to
the locals walking by.
What you are in fact looking at is a projection on rice paper of a fish tank, complete with a
real fish swimming around, that sits on a pedestal in the room behind the window. A double
projection from different sides creates the illusion of the pair doing its synchronized dance.
After Husslein came up with the idea of the mirror projection on paper, he set out to buy
twelve fish tanks with the necessary equipment and twelve small – for lack of the correct
name – “Big Eyes Fish” at the local market and, eventually, built the installation, undisturbed
by the ongoing construction, during the Chinese New Year holidays.
The installation definitely had the effect that Husslein had hoped for. “The Chinese workers
of the building told me that the fish in the windows were the topic in many conversations
they could hear during lunch breaks. They thought it was funny that the building became
famous in the neighbourhood.”
Elaborating on the fish tank concept of this installation, Husslein plans a sequel at a gallery
space “where the audience will feel like [they are] inside a fishbowl.”
Text by www.xymara.com