Work> City Expo: Light of Keelung
An exhibition (Design) that combines city data with an immersive experience, exhibited in 2022.
#Event #Exhibition
The 2022 City Expo uses the concept of “Outset City” to showcase various aspects of Keelung, from its history, culture, self-identity, and urban governance, etc. The main exhibition hall with the same name, “Outset City,” gathers creative teams from all over Taiwan, and Ultra Combos was also invited to participate.
Light of Keelung is a large-scale immersive space that changes Keelung City into data space, and turns microdata related to transportation, institutions, and scenic spots into scenes of photons flowing. These visions with a unique futuristic atmosphere mark Keelung’s meaningful attractions or hubs. In addition to overlooking the city of Keelung on-site, participants can also gain a deeper understanding of the past and present of the scenic spot by switching scenes through the device. Besides the interactive experience, the environmental theater played at set times allows participants to see the evolution of Keelung in recent years, thus experiencing the transformation of the city in a concrete and subtle way through the daily cultural scenery.
A city is like an organic life form. When you look at it from a micro-perspective, you can see the people living in it. Microdata, such as transportation, institutions, and scenic spots, are changed into scenes of photons flowing, allowing you to walk into a condensed day in Keelung from a macro-perspective. Following the path of the light, you can see the evolution of Keelung in recent years: the fishing port buildings from the old era have been transformed into cultural venues in the new generation; with urban renewal, the transportation modes have also improved; the schools that were closed due to declining birthrate were reborn as bookstores, reappearing in another form to allow citizens to embrace knowledge. Watching the sunset by the tide, having dinner at the fishing port, walking through the mountain city under an umbrella - the moments where life is taken seriously for every Keelung citizen all converge into the Light of Keelung that points to the future.
Light of Keelung is the last piece in the main exhibition area, whose mission, after the audience have seen the display of the rich cultural and historical materials and understood the urban issues, is to lead them to experience the transformation of the city in a concrete and subtle way through the daily cultural scenery, thereby imagining the future vision of Keelung. In order to talk about local daily life, we must first have a deep understanding of the place. To this end, we actually visited Keelung, read its local publications, and also highlighted a sentence in the autobiography of Keelung Mayor, “The development of Keelung is not decided by a person alone, but rather it’s more like the ‘City for Common Good’ model, where everyone needs to complete it together.
Keelung was once in a dark state, playing the role of a ‘lighthouse,’ where lighted dots is gathered to guide and lead everyone to turn the city around.” This passage established the idea of the theme of light for the different pieces in the Expo. We also tried to create a piece where “everyone completed it together,” by incorporating the concept of common good through questionnaires and feedback from the audience.
Entering into the exhibition room, you will discover that the daily scenery of Keelung constructed by the team is different from the photographs and satellite cloud images that the public is used to seeing. Since the team’s strength is digital experience, we displayed this piece of work using the perspective of how the computer sees the world, gathering the lighted dots to form the city we then presented the digitized Keelung City for visitors to see. Also, the imagery of flowing photons is related to falling raindrops, which echoes the rainy feature of Keelung.
From the digitized Keelung in the exhibition room, visitors can see landmarks, such as Keelung Transit Station, Keelung Zhengbin Fishermen’s Association Building, and Keelung Taiping Elementary School. Visitors can also switch scenes through the installation to gain an in-depth understanding of the historical knowledge and statistical information of public significance through places, such as Keelung Station and Keelung Cultural Center. Let’s start with how the picture was formed in a bigger sense. We believe that the port is inseparable from the daily life in Keelung; therefore the idea of wanting to use the view of the harbor to express our piece of work is very clear. At first, we tried to create the picture through Google Street View. After many discussions with the city government team, we found that in the past, for territorial planning needs, the city government had scans of Keelung urban landforms and seabed, and, in the end, this numerical city model appeared and became a major element of the “Light of Keelung.”
From the digitized Keelung in the exhibition room, visitors can see landmarks, such as Keelung Transit Station, Keelung Zhengbin Fishermen’s Association Building, and Keelung Taiping Elementary School. Visitors can also switch scenes through the installation to gain an in-depth understanding of the historical knowledge and statistical information of public significance through places, such as Keelung Station and Keelung Cultural Center.
Every 10 minutes or so, a scheduled environmental theater will be broadcasted in the exhibition room. We believe that using theater to present urban transformation and future prospects and propositions will be more intense and direct; therefore, we placed more emphasis on the narrative in the film. We want everyone to see the most beautiful Keelung and not only associate it with “rain,” so we asked the city government to provide us with a large number of Keelung-related videos and other materials. We improved the image quality through Gigapixel AI, and then re-edited it and adjusted its colors. This relieved us from having a tight shooting schedule and being restricted by the weather; thus restoring the clearest Keelung for all to see. In addition, we also brought in the sound design team to the site to perform detailed adjustments, so that the sound effects felt in every corner of the exhibition room were the same. We wanted to maximize the senses of the visitors through the intertwining of the magnificent symphony, the actual site to the point cloud presentation of Keelung.
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#Event #Exhibition