en | fr
Perpetual (Tropical) SUNSHINE
Text
Movie
Images
Architects
:::
:::
:::
:::
Perpetual (Tropical) SUNSHINE
Perpetual (Tropical) SUNSHINE
Installations 2005-2008 - Project - (Tropical) SUNSHINE Software
fabric | ch
With the support of the City of Lyon, the Federal Office of Cultural Affairs (OFC-BAK Switzerland), Pro Helvetia, the City of Madrid, the City of Lausanne, the State of Vaud and OSRAM

 

Perpetual (Tropical) SUNSHINE

Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine is an architectural, climatic and temporal installation made of heat and light. Thanks to a “screen” composed of several hundred infrared light bulbs, Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine retransmits non stop the journey and intensity of the sun on the 23rd parallel south, according to information transmitted live by weather centres all around the Tropic of Capricorn.

Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine thereby creates a displaced architectural space, in terms of both climate and time. This stimulated space confronts the visitor with an abstract form of day and endless summer. It represents the increasingly artificial nature of our environment and suggests a form of “static mobility” or “displaced tropicality”. Facing Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine, the visitor can experience an abstract journey through tropical sunshine without any apparent movement, across longitudes and time zones.

***

Context:

During the last twenty years, the citizens of European and North-American cities have seen an increase in the number of external heating systems using infra-red lamps installed on terraces during winter. This use of urban space, characteristic of the summertime, whereby people sit down to linger over a coffee and check out the passers by, can thus prolong the few weeks or months of suitable climate the summer usually  grants us. Thanks to these infra-red lamps, a typically southernmost behavior slowly permeates the more northerly parts of the northern hemisphere, making it possible for people to spend more time outdoors, together in public spaces.

It is always surprising to witness such transformations in people’s urban behaviour. In this case, this use of public space during winter is mainly due to the use of these artificial heating and air-conditioning systems. Today, people can stay outside on café terraces all year long in Paris, Berlin, London and even in Oslo or Stockholm, taking advantage of these localised spaces of artificial summer. Such behavior signals the rise of new types of contemporary spaces, whereby man takes control of the natural conditions of his environment in order to increasingly adapt them to his cultural needs and requirements. Whilst the artificiality increases, new spatial paradigms and artifices become possible.

Perpetual (Tropical) SUNSHINE proposes to explore these new types of spaces based or built on dimensional handling. It tries to render visible and comprehensible the major variations which take place today in the Western way of inhabiting contemporary spaces.

fabric | ch