Big Eyes Fish Take the Lead in the Living House Light Installations
Bringing expertise from his previous work in product, furniture and interface design to the table,
Simon Husslein opened up his own design studio in Shanghai in 2007 after graduating from the Royal College of Art in London. In his most recent projects, Husslein “investigates optical illusions in relation to the surrounding space, time and light” and is now testing the waters as a creative artist.
His latest light installation,
Living House, is just that – an optical illusion. The new owners of the building at 550 Wuding Road, Shanghai, approached Husslein with a request to bring life to the long dormant building and to let the locals know that a renovation is on its way. With only a small budget at hand and a longstanding Chinese tradition that served as inspiration, Husslein transformed the twelve windows on the building’s façade into oversized fish tanks, each containing “two fish swimming synchronized.” At least so it might appear to the locals walking by.
What you are in fact looking at is a projection on rice paper of a fish tank, complete with a real fish swimming around, that sits on a pedestal in the room behind the window. A double projection from different sides creates the illusion of the pair doing its synchronized dance. After Husslein came up with the idea of the mirror projection on paper, he set out to buy twelve fish tanks with the necessary equipment and twelve small – for lack of the correct name –
“Big Eyes Fish” at the local market and, eventually, built the installation, undisturbed by the ongoing construction, during the Chinese New Year holidays.
The installation definitely had the effect that Husslein had hoped for. “The Chinese workers of the building told me that the fish in the windows were the topic in many conversations they could hear during lunch breaks. They thought it was funny that the building became famous in the neighborhood.”
Elaborating on the fish tank concept of this installation, Husslein plans a sequel at a gallery space “where the audience will feel like [they are] inside a fishbowl.”
Link:www.husslein.net
