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THE MOVING AIR

A Cultural-environmental Paradigm

YEAR: 

            2020

LOCATION: 

            Berkeley, CA

TYPE: 

            Solo Exhibition

AWARDS:

            Emerging Designers Exhibition Competition

CREDITS:
            Exhibition Design: Catty Dan Zhang
            Research Assistants and Gallery Installation:

Pedro Pinera and Rick Luu, UNCC

Website

The Moving Air exhibition features multimedia investigations utilizing airflow as a material freely available in the environment. Titled “Medium Matters”, “FANS”, “VENTS”, and “MASKS”, four projects appear as oversized glasses, fans looking like umbrellas, umbrella that rains, and extra-large mask (for 2). Presented in forms of horizontal planes of assembled modules, volumes of articulated air currents, illuminated screens with projected visuals, 2D prints, and 3D artifacts, this exhibition invites playful interactions between visitors and the altered atmosphere within the gallery.

The Moving Air explores a cultural-environmental paradigm with readymade products and daily life scenarios. The exhibition design itself is at the same time a reconfiguration of one of the featured projects VENTS (2018). Undulating along the central axis of the 2,200 square feet gallery is a lightweight aluminum frame supporting a canopy of kinetic umbrella modules. Designed as an ephemeral monument of an environmental catastrophe, this canopy produces a “rain” of air puffs subtly felt on the skin with a visual pattern of color LED. Light, sound and air movements fluctuate according to the drastically changing wind speed of the Hurricane Florence which took place in North and South Carolinas during September 2018. The physical paths relating air movements at separate locations, where “vents” are typically understood as part in mechanical terms, are replaced with data transmission, translating environmental condition elsewhere into multisensorial experience. The structure of this site-specific installation was made with salvaged aluminum tubing and channels from old signage frames found around the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte. The air chambers attached to the umbrella modules are situated right above average human height, illuminating softly a series robotic instruments on display right underneath the canopy.

 

The Moving Air was selected as the winning proposal via the open call for the inaugural Emerging Designers Competition organized by UC Berkeley in October 2019. On view Jan21 - Feb 25, 2020.

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