Even after several trips down to the Southern Isle to visit our friends at MONA, the impact of Julius Popp’s ‘bit.fall’ installation still blows my mind. For those of you who are not familiar, bit.fall is effectively a machine that controls falling streams and drips of water to create beautiful, and incredibly temporary, words and images. Truly phenomenal. So when I saw the new Kinetic Rain installation by ART+COM at Changi Airport it made me smile to think of just how far we’re coming at combining amazing art and technology.

“Kinetic Rain” is composed of two parts, each consisting of 608 rain droplets made of lightweight aluminum covered with copper. Suspended from thin steel ropes above the two opposing escalators, each droplet is moved precisely and seemingly floating by a computer-controlled motor hidden in the halls ceiling. The entire installation spans a total area of more than 75 square meters and spreads over 7.3 meters in height.

“Kinetic Rain” follows a 15-minute, computationally designed choreography where the two parts move together in unison, sometimes mirroring, sometimes complementing, and sometimes responding to each other. In addition, several spot light sources mounted below the installation create a play of shadows on the terminal’s ceiling as they illuminate the movement of the rain droplets.

(MONA’s bit.fall for those of you who are unfamiliar)

http://www.artcom.de/en/news/article/detail/singapore-changi-airport-kinetic-rain/