Cubeography of Beijinginstallation art

"Cubeography of Beijing" was a piece of installation art that offered our take on the quintessence of Beijing life. A generated collage of photography and video was projected onto a set of large cubes. Each cube has a similar exterior, but a different interior space. While not "interactive" in a technological sense, the audience were invited to move the cubes around, to reorganize their city. The result was an aesthetically pleasing and playfull installation, exhibited at Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts.

In march 2003, simultaenously with the Iraq war and the SARS scare, a group of Danish design students (myself included) left for Beijing, China to participate in a collaborative workshop with students at the Central Academy of Fine Arts' Studio 7. The "cubeography" installation was produced by six students, three from China's Central Academy of Fine Arts and three from Designskolen Kolding.

I was responsible for conceptualizing, designing, editing and programming the video projection. I was also, with Anne Mette Karstad, one of two editors of the video documentation (above).

The group as a whole spent several days exploring Beijing, recording and photographing scenes and people that were illustrative of the city as a whole. We reached the form of the installation through a process of brainstorming and negotiation, overcoming cultural and linguistic difficulties.

I used the input (video and still photos) from the other group members to design the video projection. The projection was divided into a 3*3 grid, each square displaying either a photo or a video. The projection was neither linear nor random, but obeyed a set of semi-random and semi-structured rules to ensure both variety and a harmonious composition.

The installation formed part of an exhibition at CAFA's campus, and was later featured in the magazine "Art & Design", a book (edited by prof. Xiao Yong) and a DVD release (edited by Ida Blekeli and myself), both documenting the dialogue project.