An Ocean Of Polystyrene Packing Peanuts
Artist Zimoun has filled the windows of the Art Museum of Lugano in Switzerland with ventilators and 4.7m³ packing peanuts. When the large fans are turned on the packing chips create a cloudy ocean of polystyrene swirls. The turbulent kinetic work is especially striking when viewed at night and is oddly soothing to watch. An excerpt by Guido Comis and Cristina Sonderegger, published in the exhibition catalog says,
“Even though the swirling of the polystyrene in the depth of each of the windows is actually limited to that space, we have the impression that the movement is propagating to the whole length of the Limonaia. To the visual effect adds the ticking of chips on the window panes, which could remind a thin but insistent rain. If, instead, we cross the threshold and get inside the space, the perception produced by the ebb and flow of the chips changes radically becoming more abstract; the movement appears mechanical rather than natural, the buzzing of the ventilators covers up the ticking of the polystyrene on the windows and thus reveals the artificial origin of the motion.â€