Text description provided by the architects. The Cube, a sixteen meter tall painted steel and rope installation designed for the 2013 Beijing Biennale by the Oyler Wu Collaborative, challenges the volumetric perception of its own archetypal geometry. The aspiration of the installation is to achieve the transcendence of the first dimension - the line - by simulating warping two-dimensional planes, which penetrate and populate the object framework, to create the perception of inhabitable three-dimensional space.
By repetitiously manipulating the position and orientation of rope around a rigid, planar geometric framework, the installation simultaneously conveys the volumetric coherence of a cube and the contortionism of an extrapolated, two-dimensional geometric pattern.
“The design process,” explains the Oyler Wu Collaborative, “began with a simple two-dimensional plane with a series of patterns, consisting of line-work, drawn across the surface. That surface is then repeated in space, creating six planes, each offset a distance of 3 meters from one another, forming a perfect cube."
Moving perpendicular to the planes is a series of surfaces made of lines, adapting, twisting and contorting in order to connect the six planes together. Cavities of space are formed by these continuously warping planes that reach deep into the volume of the cube."
Eventually, the planes spill out of the volume, lifting the volume into the air, and becoming structural supports for the now precariously tilted volume of lines.”
-
Architects: Oyler Wu Collaborative
- Year: 2013
