RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘Playscapes’

Urban Playscapes: 14 Interactive Installations in NYC

30 Jun

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

tight spot 1

New York City is essentially one massively oversized playground, with interactive art installations ranging from vibrating inflatable globes stuffed under the High Line to mazes in Madison Square Garden just waiting to be discovered by passersby. At any given time, there are dozens of playful outdoor exhibits inviting visitors to climb, touch, listen, connect or simply gaze up in wonder.

City of Dreams Pavilion by Izaskun Chinichilla Architects

nyc city of dreams 1

nyc city of dreams 2

A colorful pavilion made of reclaimed materials has sprouted up on Governors Island in New York City. ‘City of Dreams’ by Izaskun Chinichilla Architects is a visualization of the need to be flexible when designing and carrying out architectural projects, adjusting to changes in budget, specifications and other requirements in an imaginative and intuitive way. Get close and you’ll see all of the broken umbrellas, damaged bicycles, car rims, stools and other waste products that were used to create it.

Please Touch the Art by Jeppe Hein

nyc please touch 2

nyc please touch 3

nyc please touch 4

nyc please touch 1

Unlike many art installations, which ask you to look but not touch, this series of sculptural projects by Jeppe Hein beg passersby to interact with them. ‘Please Touch the Art’ is an exhibition of 10 sculptures including benches, a mirror maze and rooms made of water spouts, all located within the waterfront Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Clouds by Olaf Breuning

nyc clouds

nyc clouds 2

nyc clouds 3

At an entrance to Central Park, childlike clouds in shades of blue hover against a backdrop of winter-bare trees and snow. The effect is that of a stage set for a play, positioning passersby as actors participating in an as-yet-unknown piece of performance. The clouds tower 35 feet above the park on steel ladders.

Cloud City on the Roof of the Met by Thomas Saraceno

nyc cloud cities 1

nyc cloud cities 2

nyc cloud cities 3

Sixteen interconnected modules come together to form ‘Cloud City,’ a geodesic dome installed on the roof of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno, who has installed similar domes in unexpected locations around the world, created the site-specific installation as a fusion of architecture, geometry, biology and ‘human involvement in order.’ Some facets of the modules are mirrored and some aren’t, distorting the view of the city’s skyline and the treetops of Central Park.

Pet Sounds by Charles Long

nyc pet sounds

pet sounds 2

Strange, colorful globs glisten on park benches, along playground railings and in the grass at Madison Square Park, creating new paths and converging around a common seating area. And if anyone is brave enough to actually touch these strange-looking things, they’re rewarded with a variety of sounds and vibrations. ‘Pet Sounds’ by California sculptor Charles Long invites people to add an aural landscape to the physical one in the park. “My re-occuring interest in the uncanny over many years is in full effect here in the Pet Sounds project where something as familiar and literally grounding as a handrail morphs into an unnamable blob that has a very physical presence with some power to dialog with the viewer’s own somatic sense. As one pets the blobs, a wide range of sounds are triggered and are coming from within the bodies of the forms.”

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Urban Playscapes 14 Interactive Installations In Nyc

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Urban Playscapes: 14 Interactive Installations in NYC

Posted in Creativity

 

Crochet Playscapes: 13 Interactive String Art Installations

10 Feb

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Crocheted Playgrounds Main

Miles of yarn and string stretch across inflatable structures, galleries and outdoor environments in these crocheted and knotted art installations, offering massive interactive playgrounds that invite people to climb, bounce and lounge. String is used as both an art medium and a functional, supportive structure in projects ranging from vast playscapes for children to a public NYC installation made of 1.4 million feet of hand-knotted rope.

Colorful Crochet Playgrounds by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam

Crochet Playgrounds Horiuchi

Perhaps the most vast and complex crocheted works ever created, Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam’s colorful installations are literal playgrounds for kids and adults, installed in parks and playgrounds. The artist starts her design process by creating a wooden scale model of the space where the net will be installed, and thence rockets the piece in fine cotton thread. That design is then adapted to full scale with yarn. ‘Rainbow Net,’ her most famous piece, took three years to complete and is located at the children’s area of the Takino Suzuran Hillside National Park in Sapporo, Japan.

Crocheted Alligator Playground by Olek

Crocheted Playscapes Alligator

An alligator the size of a particularly massive dinosaur is covered in colorful crocheted yarn in ‘Crocheted Jacaré,’ a piece in Brazil by Brooklyn-based artist Olek. The alligator was already a part of the playground, Olek simply created some temporary clothes for it that made it stand out even more.

In Orbit: Transparent Suspended Net Playground

Crocheted Net Playscapes In Orbit 2

Transparent net hung over a four-story drop offers a rather frightening play experience for anyone with the slightest fear of heights. Artist Tomás Saraceno created the 2500-square-meter installation at the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum in Dusseldorf, Germany, inviting visitors to walk out onto the cloud-like nets amidst mirrored spheres.

Inhabitable String Structure by Numen/For Use

Crochet Playscapes Inhabitable String

Climbers make their way through a grid made of string in this ‘social sculpture’ installation by design collective Numen/For Use. The ropes are contained within an inflatable structure, secured to all sides of the interior. When the bubble is deflated, they fall to the ground, and when it’s inflated, they become a taut interactive playground. The designers describe it as “bodies entrapped in a 3D grid, flying in unnatural positions throughout superficial white space, resemble dadaist collages. Impossibility of perception of scale and direction results in the simultaneous feeling of immenseness and absence of space.”

Crocheted Net Nests by Ernesto Neto

Crochet Playscapes Ernesto Neto 2
Crochet Playscapes Ernesto Neto 1

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto creates massive crochet installations reminiscent of the playgrounds by Horiuchi MacAdam, but in more muted tones. Strung from gallery ceilings, these strange little ‘nests’ offer an inhabitable space that can be either playful or quiet and comforting. Larger pieces encourage running and jumping, while the smaller ones are cocoon-like relaxation spaces.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Crochet Playscapes 13 Interactive String Installations

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Crochet Playscapes: 13 Interactive String Art Installations

Posted in Creativity