The Path is an installation designed for a carpet manufacturing company in one of the world’s largest trade fairs for floor coverings in Hannover, Germany. It was commissioned to be placed inside a twenty squaremeter box within the trade fair. It became the only project representing Turkey in the special zone set apart from the rest of the fair where firms express themselves in creative ways without exhibiting their own products. Inspired by multi colored fibers used in the weaving of a carpet, a game was designed where the visitors become subjects who create a carpet with colorful balls representing threads and knots.
The base of the installation is an independent platform covered with six centimeter diameter holes, which host the balls. In the space above the platform are two sixty meter long, brightly coloured metal tracks in the form of half round pipes which are hung from the ceiling and constructed in an intertwining manner. This rather complex looking structure of the tracks, after precise calculations, has been optimized to be built upon different
combinations of only two modules and thus behind its modular logic lies its practicality. The visitors, by selecting a ball in the color of their choice from the ball holders positioned at the sides and rolling it in the tracts at any point, become the participants of an interactive game. The balls then travel through the curvy route of the slightly inclined track of pipes until they finally reach the end, where they are now free to find their way into an empty hole
to sit in. Sharp, metallic sounds created as balls roll inside the tracks and fall onto the base platform exemplify the curious collaboration between motion and sound in the installation.
When all the holes on the floor of the installation have a ball placed in them in a magically probabilistic way, an abstract rug is created. This image of a rug is the product of a collaborative process based on arbitrary, individual choices which, thus, make the process as interesting as the end result. This interactive game is repeatable once all the holes have been filled in and the end product of each completed game is naturally unique. The Path has been a structure that evoked interaction among visitors and led to co-creation, while offering them a surprising, enjoyable and engaging break time in the intense environment of a trade fair. The positive feedback received from the visitors on the concept and realization of the installation calls for a search for other contexts where the game could be repeated and more people invited to join in.
2019
2019
