'pop star' installation in shanghai introduces a transcendental way of observing the world

designer li hao from one take architects presents the ‘pop star’ installation located within an open field of shanghai, china. emerging from the desire to create a transcendental visual system, the grand structure combines colorful glass surfaces into an icosahedron shape, encouraging observers to view life in a brand new way.

all images by li wei, ai song, li hao

the human visual system features only three types of cones, while birds observe the world through four types of cones that allow them to distinguish a lot more color. meanwhile, a variety of insects like dragonflies, have compound eyes with 10,000 to 30,000 ommatidia, and each ommatidium is a small camera that keeps shooting the surrounding objects to form an image, which can observe things within 6 meters. ‘compared to other creatures, we are color blind’ li hao says.

‘pop star’ comes from the designers’ intent to create a new transcendental visual system for humans. through the deconstruction of space and the reconstruction of form, the design generates a huge volume that exceeds the human visual reading scale, like an alien object that has flown in from another dimension of time and space.

spectators can climb up on the central area of ‘pop star’ to look around the surrounding fields. immediately, viewers are able to feel the association between the installation and transcendental theory that ralph waldo emerson said: ‘the world globes itself in a drop of dew’, while the artist enlarges a tiny compound eye into a behemoth. 

according to li hao, in its interior, ‘pop star’ is ‘quiet, dependent, and maternal’, while from the outside it is characterized as ‘extremely oppressive, power-hungry, and fatherly’. among the two contradictory tensions, the dialectical relationship between motion and static is lost, and the visual senses become an illusion. ‘pop star’ emerges within this very paradoxical state of perception, which expresses a pure form of original power, freed from text and narrative, viewing the unknown unbounded universe in a transcendental way. 

project info:

name: pop star
designer: li hao from one take architects
curator: ai song 
illustrations: wang xiaoting
location: hengsha island, shanghai, china

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: myrto katsikopoulou | designboom