2018/08 - ENDLESS STAIRCASES
The project combined two elements-mobius stairs and blue water to create an installation that USES visual illusions to make people aware of how to break the cycle of everyday life and find something meaningful.
Background
The inspiration comes from Ross Hogg's short film 'life cycle', in which the creator frames his day in pictures. Every scene is his real experience, and most of us just live a monotonous, routine, and boring life like him.
' 'Syria' always appears in different stages in the whole animation, which is almost a parallel narrative or cycle. I see it all the time on the Internet and on TV, and if I include it, I think it's a real glimpse into my life and everyday life.' Said Hogg.
Although our regular behaviors give us a sense of familiarity and security, and make up most of our lives.
WHAT STANDS OUT IN THE
'LIFE CYCLE'
IS NOT CONSISTENCY,
BUT A BREAK FROM ROUTINE.
The juxtaposition of the monotony of the middle class represented by the creator's life and the tragedy of the outside world represented by "Syria" illustrates how many of us live in a state of apparent imbalance. It wasn't until the final blow that he broke the rules again and used an image as an indictment against us.
Throughout human history, wars and upheavals have occurred in all ages. Is this an essential part of the human process? Is there a day when we can break out of the routine and break away from this repeating history?
Life is a cycle, and almost everyone goes through the same life stage. If we are stuck in a boring routine every day, should we try to stop and pay attention to social events that need help and do something completely different to break our cycle of repetition?
Design Process
Take the infinite cycle illusion and the architecture, products, installation arts inspired by it and staircases as the first element.
Staircases are like stages of life, whether it is up or down, everyone has to move forward. When people climb the stairs with the same speed and the same height, they will feel numb, just like the boring daily life. Why not make a staircase installation with different height for people to experience the feeling of breaking the convention?
As a common element in installation art, water is very attractive. It is the source of life, can reflect the nature, but also can express the artificial design. Water can represent both movement and quietness, which is a symbol of tenderness in both eastern and western cultures.
Water and blue are only elements in daily life under normal circumstances, but the above installation art USES other materials, light and shadow effects and the application of space to express the feeling of water, which produces visual illusion and jumps out of the material itself.
In my installation art, I use blue to create the effect of flowing water, thus jumping out of the color itself and out of the routine due to optical illusion.
If the mobius strip were combined with blue water, would people have a special sensory experience by feeling the infinite cycle of water? As if this installation art is endowed with life and human interaction.
STAIRS SHAPE
At first, I used lego brick to make several shapes of the stairs. In order to give the impression of a stair going up slowly and to highlight the shape of the mobius strip, I finally chose a triangle with a narrow front and a wide back, instead of a square and a raised back.
I wanted to present the surface staircase with a waterlike mobius strip embedded inside, so I designed the most appropriate stairs shape and mobius strip shape respectively.
The original design has four forms. The two on the left are non-circular forms. The superposition part is the beginning of the stairs. On the right is the actual mobius strip.
In order to fit the theme and better represent the shape of water cycle, the mobius strip with triangular shape was selected.
MOBIUS SHAPE
TESTING PIECE
Height 6.3m
Width 7.8m
Length 8.0m
Material - Resin
People can be directly set foot on the stairs, each step height is different, the difficulty is different also, want to change the the design of stair can experience those wise men should be breaking this truth in the life cycle, can choose to enjoy standing on the stairs of a place to watch the water cycle, also can walk, experience this cycle.
When the transparent stairs made of resin have a future development, it makes people feel as if they are walking on the mobius strip, no matter which side they walk on, they will eventually come back to the original point, just like nature and life cycle.
