International Algae Competition 2011 Entry Submitted

Finally I have submitted my competition entry.
I tried a new approach in the project presentation; through narrative, from a third person view.


Southern Sweden, late 2011

    All of a sudden there is a glow between the trees, she speeds up her steps on her evening walk along the canal of the old central town, in Malmö. Even though the traffic is a lot less heavy on the Amirals Bridge on Sundays, there is plenty of movement ahead. People are gathering. To her amazement, she perceives a light-emitting, almost levitating structure, slowly twisting in the small park in-between the elms and the chestnuts. It looks like if the strange, glowing sails over there, are dancing interwoven in a complex network.
    As she makes her way into the crowd she hears people solemnly whisper to each other. She hears someone asking what this machine is, and another; what it does. Some are amazed and some confused.
    The spaces in-between the new members of the park are slowly and constantly changing as she stands there for a minute trying to understand the friendly alien, that is currently making itself comfortable in her city.
    She approaches one of the dynamic, six meter tall sails. She looks through its transparent polycarbonate facets, into the turbid, green liquid being tossed around by a constant flow of air bubbles in a beautiful twirling manner. She gives the semi-opaque panel a gentle push and it softly slides away. Looking up, at about ten meters height, there is an arch-shaped structure sliding away circumferentially together with the sail, in response to her push.
    Underneath the arches there are groups of translucent, glowing pipes crisscrossing in different layers, tying each sail to a cluster of elevated spheres over by the cars parked along the road. Intrigued by the spheres she starts walking along one of the paths that the glowing tubes are drawing out in the ceiling. Closing in, the sound of running water gradually increases, this sound is backed up by various types of mechanical, buzzing and humming noises, reminding her of laundry machines.
    The cluster of tubes, hanging out through the dense grid of valves on the side of the spheres, are rocking and vibrating, only a few inches above ground. She grabs one of the tubes, feeling the flow within it. It is not much thicker than an arm, she thinks.
    A few meters away a group of kids has stacked their bikes in a pile and are competing about who dares to climb to the top of the spheres. One boy tries to climb on to a sail instead. Curiously he adjusts the panels, making himself comfortable as he calls his friend to come join him. She smiles at their play and her eyes once again start to wander along the tubes and pipes, as she unconsciously is trying to contract a perception of the infrastructural organization and circulation of the system. There are two unlit pipes up there, running down to the canal and out into the water. She can see some kind of water pump working out there, but it is a bit too far to fully percept in the October dusk.
    Continuing her walk through the hi-tech pavilion that inhabits the public space, she sees tall poles neatly distributed along the pedestrian refuge in the big road, leading over the Amirals Bridge. At the top of these, machines are stretching their arms over the traffic. It looks as if they are reaching for something, she thinks. Her thoughts are disturbed by a loud conversation between two men. One of them is pointing up along the metal structures, as he eagerly explains to his friend about the machines up there. He refers to them as vacuum cleaners, and says that they are sucking car exhaust into the complex system. The polluted air is further filtrated through the sails, which he refers to as "algae tanks", where CO2 is broken down through the process of photosynthesis.
    So it's algae?, she thinks.
    She has heard about algae air purification systems, but never before seen one. The man goes on telling his friend, that during daytime all the sails follow the movement of the sun in a slow synchronized choreography and now, at night, they come alive, glowing and interacting with the passerby.
    As she crosses the street, she stops for a few seconds at the pedestrian refuge, looking straight up at one of the dining table-sized suction filters shifting sides. Carrying on her walk, she looks back over her shoulder, studying the installation from a distance, as its emerald green glow blends together with the orange leaves of its neighbors.

Board size 36x24inch (914x610mm)