Air Interactive Installation- Ningbo, China, 2016 

CatenAIRies is large-scale responsive installation commissioned for the 2nd International Ningbo Art Exhibition with the theme: Air. Through suspended motion-sensor activated fans, the silk drapes are inflated to become domes, as the museum visitor’s move through the installation. Through this user-activation, CatenAIRies provokes the user to connect the consequences of their activity to the air above them.

This work weaves together Antistatics’ key motives: 1. To involve the human in the project, as important a “material” as any others; 2. To use minimal material with maximum area and effect; 3. To use dynamic and responsive systems to allow any work to exist meaningfully in two or more states, and through the dynamism, to allow the meaning to emerge.

The material selection for CatenAIRies is the result of rigorous testing and prototyping, choosing a fabric which behaves according to our desired performance while evoking ideas aquatic creatures, cloud-like formations, flora and fauna and simultaneously pollution and litter. The structural elements of the installation are minimized for impact allowing the undulating fabric to appear as though it is floating in the gallery space.

Looking to the building blocks of nature and seeking a design that could be quickly constructed in a short period of time, CatenAIRies is composed of a minimal palette of materials. Silk, fans, plaster and steel come together as discrete elements to create a cohesive whole.

The penalization for the domes involved a rigorous study of various patterning techniques. The seam pattern plays an important role in the aesthetic detailing of the work, in particular, the visitor’s perception from beneath as the hanging fabric of the shell is thrust upwards. Using a seam pattern inspired by the natural pattern of the phyllotaxis creates a strong visual link to floral geometries.

The panel size is optimized by material scale finding a balance between effect, form and fabrication.