Pick up light kaleidoscope

The Kaleidoscope of Collected Light is a participatory public art installation by Wake-up Space for the second phase of East Street in Nanchuan, Chongqing, a district treasured by locals as an epitome of everyday small-town life. In March 2019, the Nanchuan District launched a preservation and redevelopment plan that keeps the old street's spatial fabric while creating China's first cultural-tourism complex centred on the authentic life of ordinary people. The design team wanted to build an emotionally interactive outdoor installation and reached back to the childhood memory of waving a torch in the dark night. A vintage flashlight is enlarged many times over, forming a vertical interior space at 13 metres by 4 metres. Six mirrored stainless-steel walls create infinite reflections, and a high-definition LED screen at the far end displays endlessly shifting kaleidoscopic patterns that multiply in the mirrors into vivid, moving colour. The deep space is carefully proportioned to avoid the oppressive feel of a tunnel, instead evoking the warm, enfolding feeling of childhood dreams. Just as the flashlight once gave direction to darkness, the installation aims to reawaken the extinguished East Street and the uncomplicated joy of Nanchuan's people. The design draws on Donald Norman's three levels of emotional design - visceral, behavioural and reflective - and argues that when industrialised urban development loses touch with human feeling, emotional design is a necessary remedy. The studio has also produced related installations including a cassette-recorder bar, a pager and an oversized mobile phone.