numen/for use inflates interactive net blow-up in yokohama

numen/for use inflates interactive net blow-up in yokohama
all images courtesy of numen/for use

croatian-austrian design collective numen/for use is best known for their large scale interactive sculptures, often using everyday materials like tape in their build. their latest structure ‘net blow-up’ — most recently on display in october 2013 near the waterfront in yokohama, japan — is an inflatable, box-like space with buoyant black webs fitted tightly inside. the blown-up exterior skin creates an immersive interior cavity filled with a complex network of interwoven mesh material. visitors invited inside become temporary inhabitants of the playful balloon-like pavilion, completely encompassed in both net and bubble and able to bounce and boomerang off the ceiling, floor, and walls. the soft object deforms and mutates with every movement inside, making it a constantly evolving, kinetic expanse. at night, illumination from within almost becomes a projection screen, casting shadows of the shifting environment outside.

visitors to the inflatable space bounce off the meshed material

the immersive sculpture invites viewers inside

taught nets are fitted inside allowing the temporary inhabitants to bounce and spring off their surface

visitors lying and sitting inside the bubble-like space

a complex network of interwoven mesh material fills the space

illumination inside almost becomes a projection screen to viewers outside

shadows cast from the interior are projected on to the exterior skin

the inflatable white bubble

net blow-up in yokohama, japan

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