Imaginary Forces

53rd Annual Design Review

Bubbles in the Wine

For an installation at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, Los Angeles-based Imaginary Forces [as part of a United Architects collaboration creatively led by Peter Frankfurt and Greg Lynn] hung balloons measuring between 3 and 9 feet in diameter from the ceiling and walls of a tight, roughly triangular enclosure.  From within these rubber spheres, they projected eight synchronized films, at times letting a given image spread playfully across more than one balloon.  Rosa [one of the judges for this competition] found the idea engrossing for its novel treatment of video projection, which he thinks designers often don't know how to handle.  The balloons "have their own character, and the space bleeds onto them," he said.  Tsurumaki [one of the judges] thought the ballons gave a new dimension to the visual material, which he found particularly compelling in the strictures of the space.  "It's even more interesting because the designers were intent on forcing a state of compression" within the viewing area, he said.