The project is inspired by the Hong Kong’s no longer existing Kowloon Walled City and its graphical cross-section representation created by a group of Japanese researchers at the end of the 90’s.

By using LCD screens and LEDs on a tower-like physical structure we are attempting to look inside of a building and see its inhabitants – how they live, how they move. The idea of transferring movement between physical and virtual depth domain is explored here by tracing a person’s location – first on an LCD screen (virtual space), then LEDs (real space, hidden) back to LCD. The tower is an attempt of creating an autonomous object which has a feeling of ‘life’ in it. The top LED matrix part was added to emphasize the towerness referring to the bright head parts of slim towers seen in big Aisan cities often featuring big antennas. The open visible wire structure and tower’s internals add to the feeling of ‘seeing-through’ the building.

Vladislav Luchnikov, Xiangru Nie, Ruijia Mei, Yu-Tzu Hsu, Mengshan Li