[월드컵공원에 이상한 설치물이 생겼다?] 'Lighting up' Seoul's air quality

'Lighting up' Seoul's air quality

Take a stroll through World Cup Park in Mapo-gu, western Seoul, and one will notice a weird-looking new structure near Pyounghwa Park.

An acrylic pavilion which resembles a stylish bus stop, or maybe a solar collector, has been there since last Monday.

Seeing it closely, viewers can notice that its top is shaped like the map of Seoul, and is placed in the exact directions. The 25 divided sections each sometimes flash brightly or grow dim.

Do you get what it is?

The bizarre structure is actually an interactive work called "Living Light," installed by the Seoul City Gallery Project, a public arts project run by the city. The installation detects and shows the real-time air pollution levels throughout the 25 "gu" or sections of Seoul.

If the air quality of a certain gu improves from the day before, LED lights on the section turns brighter, and if it becomes more polluted, the lights turn darker.

Visitors can walk through the 6 meters wide and 2.7 meters tall installation and check the air conditions of different places in Seoul.

The creators of this installation are Yang Su-in and David Benjamin who currently work as a team called "The Living" in New York, United States.

The team has made many experimental and chic installations related to environmental indexes such as "Living Glass," which automatically sucks in fresh air from the outside according to the carbon dioxide level in the room, or "River Glow," which checks the acidity-level of a river and displays it through red and green lights like a traffic signal.

Seoul citizens can easily interact with "Living Light." Send a text message with your zip code to 013-3366-3615 and it replies immediately, stating the change in the air pollution level of the area today compared to the previous month.

Another interesting part: No matter where the text sender is, the sender's gu on the installation glows when it receives the message.

To see the project, take the subway line 6 to the World Cup Station. Go out exit 1 and walk straight until you reach the Mapo agricultural and marine products market. "Living Light" stands at the entrance of the Pyounghwa Park.

(claire@heraldm.com)

By Park Min-young