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Artists: ENESS
- Area: 500 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:zhuruiphoto
Text description provided by the architects. Sky Castle is a dreamy, interactive sound and light installation, featuring a cluster of inflatable arches that span in colourful symphony across public space. As visitors move through the arches, their movement powers and progresses the melodic xylophone soundscape stimulating colour changes in each arch. Light, colour and music have been orchestrated to evoke the joy and hope that rainbows bring after every storm. As more people join the journey, the contemporary score crescendos in intensity creating a lush, orchestral piece that is different every night as it responds to crowd flow and fluctuations.
Sky Castle launched in Fed Square in 2020 to celebrate Melbourne’s emergence from its 3rd lockdown. A supersized, mega Sky Castle appeared in Shenzhen at the end of 2020 and Illuminate Adelaide in mid-2021. The Sky Castle will next appear at the Brisbane Festival 3-12 September 2021.
The Sky Castle story was developed during the lockdown as an expression of freedom from isolation and the positive clear skies that come after difficult times. In terms of design, it is an exploration of inflatables as temporary architecture. This is the tallest temporary structure that ENESS has created and it is designed to be modular. The total footprint of the full version is 500 square metres. At this size, the installation begins to feel like a little city and poses interesting questions about the permanency of public art structures, the potential for our public spaces to change radically in very short periods of time and how post-pandemic, we may wish to construct and experience our cities differently.
