The art of installation takes Xintiandi into space

Installation artwork featuring space stations and astronauts adorned Shanghai Xintiandi earlier this week, giving a futuristic touch to the downtown shopping and entertainment center.

As part of this year’s Lumiere Shanghai Lighting Festival, the series of four major installation works was created by local art group Chuang Gallery under the theme “Entering the Futuristic Scene”.

“Space science is probably one of the most talked about topics today, from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to China’s first female astronaut, and we artists are certainly very interested in it,” the Shanghai Daily told the Feng Bin, the chief artist of the Chuang Gallery.

“We would like to bring to life a possible life scene for human beings in the near future,” Feng said. “There are a few spaces that cannot be avoided, for example, the lander, the spacewalk and, as a transit hub, the base station.”

With a total of more than 20 artists, including design illustrators, modelers and engineers, they have managed to present the public with a space for the imagination, as well as a vision of future life in space.

In the square of Xintiandi Style I is the main room, a mixed installation called “Space Station 20” which is 17 meters long and 5 meters high. It presents the basic unit of a space station with some 100,000 electrical components that integrate all the functions necessary for the daily life of a human.

“I studied and borrowed a dozen control combinations that are commonly seen in commercialized public transport today, such as automobiles and airplanes,” Feng explained.

He had built up a cloud of images of all these components according to his own aesthetic, then had selected the color and geometric combinations (of the control units) he favored, reorganized them and integrated them into the room. ‘installation.

The station’s energy system appears as a “Tree of the Future” presented via holographic imagery. Shining in a bright, warm orange light, the power shaft is a huge contrast to the silvery gray space station.

The event runs until the end of the year.