Hydrophily

By Dominique Peysson et Hsinli Wang – An interactive installation (2013)


Hydrophily is a work on the frontier between the ephemeral and the permanent. The delicate fog patterns can evolve very finely depending on the outside temperature. The size of the drops that constitute the very material of the drawing increases very slowly over time, day after day. The light from installed systems in the windows responds in an interactive way to the spectators’ presence.

The title of the artwork refers both to the plants that let their pollen run with the flow of water and to the specific physico-chemical properties of the installation. It is the stream of a river or the flow of a pond that will allow hydrophilic plants to pollen and thus to reproduce. Among them the Potamogeton, a rhizomatic aquatic plant that lives in lakes where rivers have little current. The fog patterns that appear on the basin walls represent different plants of these Potamogetons.

Following the series of works “Les limbes” by Hsinli Wang (hsinliwang.com)



Credits

Surface treatment experiments with Daniel Beysens (ESPCI), Niki Baccile (Collège de France) and Christophe Gaumont. Work on interactive light with Annie Leuridan, Cyrille Henry and Omar Benyebka. As part of the DiiP/EnsadLab program (now Reflective Interaction) and ESPCI ParisTech.