MWLU installation (mobile working living units)
An installation representing the MLWU project, prepared for the ‘New Hotels for Global Nomads’ exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; New York, USA; 28.10.2002–02.03.2003
The installation comprises a spatially modulated transparency that operates over a span of time. Two main components are incorporated into this piece: a glass screen onto which images appear and disappear, and a flexible kinetic scale model. The screen component is defined by a three-layer glass structure composed of 36 individual panels, each 600mmH x 500mmW, there being 12 panels per layer. Graphic images are printed onto each glass panel in black thermochromic ink - ink that reacts to temperature; when warm it appears transparent-white, when cool it is black. Silk-screened onto each of the glass panels is a car rear-window defroster system, enabling the glass to become warm on the application of electricity. By programming selected panels to be activated at certain times, the clarity of the print is affected and the images are obscured, so enhancing the visibility of the images on the other panels; electricity to the panels is thereby switched off-and-on, in defined intervals, affecting the particular graphic language and rhythm of presentation. A white polyamide scale model is mounted onto the backside of the glass panel structure at mid-height in the centre. The model, printed via selective laser sintering (SLS), represents a single module of the built MLWU structure, which contains eight mobile living-working units. Every three minutes the model expands from its compressed form to its fully extended form, indicating, respectively, the size of the structure under transport and its stature once it is unfolded on location. The periodic ascending and descending movement of the model act together with the appearance and disappearance of the various printed images, to tell the story of the Mobile Living-Working Units project over a short elapse of time.
Credits:
Carl De Smet
Philippe vercauteren