Linjing Zhang

Flickering Square

Have you ever thought about exploring the shape of the sunlight and wind in the city?  What kind of methods, materials or structures could help us see their form? There is a small square in Chinatown that lacks sunlight during all seasons. Seeing the sun in this area is transitory. Working with a pattern created from a pandemic zoom meeting, this design celebrates sun and wind during the summer and simulates sunlight in other seasons by using a responsive electrically conductive material. Part of the system is temporary, while some is permanent. The simulation of the sunlight system and the moveable resting structures are permanent, and the wind and flickering sunlight system are temporary. For the wind system, the largest rhombus is rotatable by wind due to their particular structure. Thus, it is necessary to analyse the main wind direction to adjust the size of the rhombus. This celebratory project links the ground and the sky through a dynamic installation.