Katherine Hua – Looking Outwards – 03

Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport features an art installation called “Kinetic Rain” created by German design house ART+COM. The installation is meant to offer a calming effect in the busy Singapore airport terminal. This visual experience of fluidity, distinctive shapes, elegant and refined movements was brought to life through parametric computational algorithms and digital fabrication. Kinetic Rain is made of up more than a thousand bronze droplets attached to the ceiling through steel wires. The steel wires are connected to a computer program that can control how the bronze droplets rise and fall. The computer designed movement creates slow, fluid to create refined yet simple shapes, from abstract to three-dimensional forms. I admire how this art installation was able to use parametric digital design and parametric fabrication methods to explore the how the computer can be used to be more than just a tool. The creator’s of artistic sensibilities are reflected in Kinetic Rain as they use computers as an artistic medium that explores the technological and scientific aspects.

Kinetic Rain by ART+COM, 2012