13 STUNNING INTERACTIVE STRING ART INSTALLATIONS

Crochet Playscapes: 13 Interactive String Art Installations
By Steph, Web Urbanist, 10 February 2014.

Miles of yarn and string stretch across inflatable structures, galleries and outdoor environments in these crocheted and knotted art installations, offering massive interactive playgrounds that invite people to climb, bounce and lounge. String is used as both an art medium and a functional, supportive structure in projects ranging from vast playscapes for children to a public New York City installation made of 1.4 million feet of hand-knotted rope.

1. Colourful Crochet Playgrounds by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam

Perhaps the most vast and complex crocheted works ever created, Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam’s colourful installations are literal playgrounds for kids and adults, installed in parks and playgrounds. The artist starts her design process by creating a wooden scale model of the space where the net will be installed, and thence rockets the piece in fine cotton thread. That design is then adapted to full scale with yarn. ‘Rainbow Net,’ her most famous piece, took three years to complete and is located at the children’s area of the Takino Suzuran Hillside National Park in Sapporo, Japan.

2. Crocheted Alligator Playground by Olek

An alligator the size of a particularly massive dinosaur is covered in colourful crocheted yarn in ‘Crocheted Jacaré,’ a piece in Brazil by Brooklyn-based artist Olek. The alligator was already a part of the playground, Olek simply created some temporary clothes for it that made it stand out even more.

3. In Orbit: Transparent Suspended Net Playground

Transparent net hung over a four-story drop offers a rather frightening play experience for anyone with the slightest fear of heights. Artist Tomás Saraceno created the 2500-square-meter installation at the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum in Dusseldorf, Germany, inviting visitors to walk out onto the cloud-like nets amidst mirrored spheres.

4. Inhabitable String Structure by Numen/For Use

Climbers make their way through a grid made of string in this ‘social sculpture’ installation by design collective Numen/For Use. The ropes are contained within an inflatable structure, secured to all sides of the interior. When the bubble is deflated, they fall to the ground, and when it’s inflated, they become a taut interactive playground.

The designers describe it as “bodies entrapped in a 3D grid, flying in unnatural positions throughout superficial white space, resemble dadaist collages. Impossibility of perception of scale and direction results in the simultaneous feeling of immenseness and absence of space.”

5. Crocheted Net Nests by Ernesto Neto

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto creates massive crochet installations reminiscent of the playgrounds by Horiuchi MacAdam, but in more muted tones.

Strung from gallery ceilings, these strange little ‘nests’ offer an inhabitable space that can be either playful or quiet and comforting. Larger pieces encourage running and jumping, while the smaller ones are cocoon-like relaxation spaces.

6. OVER IT: 14 Miles of String

Eighteen disparate Portland artists, writers, designers, art directors, fashion designers and illustrators got together to to attempt a project that sounds virtually impossible: producing a single work of art that they could all agree on.

The result is ‘OVER IT,’ “an experiment in creating as a group, letting go, disagreement, misunderstanding, backpedalling and trust.” Fourteen miles of string was connected to gallery walls and ceilings with eye hooks to produce a typography exhibit.

7. Bounce House for Adults with Hanging Nets

Another inflatable playhouse for adults by Numen/For Use, ‘Net Blow-Up’ is a big white bubble strung with a series of black nets and installed near the waterfront in Yokohama, Japan.

Multiple levels of netting offer a stretchy, bouncy surface upon which to let out your inner child.

8. Climbable Yellow String Installation by Jesus Rafael Soto

‘Penetrable‘ is an interactive installation of hanging yellow string, which went on display at various museums across the country in 2007.

Visitors climbed the strings or simply stood within them as they blew around in the wind.

9. Big Boss Crochet Landscape by Orly Genger

Orly Genger hand-knotted over 100 miles of rope into thick plaits for ‘Big Boss,’ a bright red installation at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. “Grappling with the male-dominated history of sculpture, and the legacy of the Minimalists, in particular, Genger introduces a traditionally female-identified craft process - an adaptation of a crochet stitch - and its association with intimacy and domesticity into an artistic idiom characterized by industrial production and bravado.”

10. Crocheted Net Environments by Ernesto Neto

Another installation by Ernesto Neto is created at an even grander scale at the Faena Arts Centre in Buenos Aires.

The multi-sensory exhibit entitled ‘Crazy Hyperculture in the Vertigo of the World’ includes sacks of colourful, richly scented spices like saffron in cloves hanging down from the net structure in the shape of massive droplets.

11. Mater Matrix Mother and Medium Crochet Installation Project

‘Mater Matrix Mother and Medium‘ is an on-going crochet installation project by multi-disciplinary artist Mandy Greer, traveling to multiple locations around the country. The project involves both community participation and an installation of a 300-foot fibre river of recycled yarns and fabrics crocheted into the trees of a community. MMMM “celebrates the splendour of our urban creeks and watersheds and the communities that protect them.” Greer teaches anyone in the community who’s willing to learn how to crochet and has them help create the installation.

12. Bright Red Monolithic Rope Installation in NYC by Orly Genger

Another rope installation by Orly Genger breaks out of gallery walls in favour of a public location - Madison Square Park in New York City.

‘Red, Yellow and Blue’ is a wave-like commission made of an incredible 1.4 million feet of hand-crocheted lobster-fisher rope. The final installation was covered in over 3,500 gallons of paint and weighs 100,000 pounds.

13. Floating String Sculptures Mimic the Aurora Borealis

Billowing in the air, these large-scale string sculptures stand out against the night sky in vivid colours to evoke the natural wonder of the Aurora Borealis. Artist Janet Echelman creates them with traditional net-weaving techniques, working with a team of aeronautical and mechanical engineers to produce a final product that takes on a life of its own when suspended in the air.

[Source: Web Urbanist. Edited.]