Living Line Installation | SPEECH

As part of Design Week in Milan on April 13 INTERNI magazine’s annual exhibition of art installations kicks off. This year’s theme is Energy for Life. At the exhibition Russian architects Sergei Tchoban (SPEECH architectural office), Sergey Kuznetsov, and Agniya Sterligova will present the sculpture Living Line.

The Living Line installation was created for the central part of the main courtyard at the University of Milan, which occupies the Ca 'Granda complex of 15th century Renaissance buildings. Installed in the very center of the lawn in the form of a Mobius strip – whose shape seemed to the authors the most in tune with the exhibition’s theme of Energy for Life – and consists of pylons of various heights, and finished with mirrored plexiglass. Due to the different angles of rotation of these elements in relation to the sides of the courtyard, and their constantly changing height (from 3.5 m to 6 m) Living Line is perceived as a mirage, as an optical illusion. It appears as if its surface and line converging with the pylons in their highest point are constantly moving and creating new reflections of the University’s famous Renaissance facades.

The installation’s changing ephemerality contrasts with the symmetrical courtyard facades surrounding it on all axes, and in the evening at the highest point of each of the pylons a light illuminates, drawing a glowing line that hovers in the air. Vibrating and almost completely dissolved within the context, the Living Line installation leaves visitors with a wide space for self-reflection and interpretation of meanings.

The Living Line project was executed by the company VELKO.