YOYO

Permanent light art installation, Student Residency, Madrid 2020

The light art installation was commissioned to Brut Deluxe by a private promotor for a student residency in Madrid. We proposed to place the installation in the entrance hall, a four story atrium space with a glass curtain wall in the north and the opposite wall with balconies and the elevators in the south. The glass window offers impressive views of Madrid´s skyline from the upper floors. From the outside, it is the only larger opening in the façade showcasing the residency´s activity to the street. At night, the light installation takes over protagonism creating a vibrant atmosphere that plays with associations of urban night life, pop culture, social media communication and sexiness.
The installation is denominated YOYO and consists of two main elements: a cloud of neon signs hanging randomly in the space and a mirror covering the entire ceiling. The 22 neon text signs are hand-blown and custom made for this installation displaying typical social media short text messages with the single condition of using only vertically symmetrical letters. This way, all text messages are legible from any side. The metal structure to fix letters and speech bubble was resolved with a single vertical 10mm aluminium tube. All electricity cables are with transparent plastic covering.
The mirror covering the entire ceiling doubles the perception of the space and light motives. The panels are realised in polycarbonate with mirror foil and display a pattern of clouds milled in the mirror. Programmable LED stripes located behind the mirror shift subtly colours along the whole colour range and illuminate the cloud pattern in the ceiling.

design: Ben Busche / Brut Deluxe www.brutdeluxe.com
team: Philip Baumann, Elisa Luda
client: Bcome by Urbania
constructor: ilmex (Grupo Ximenez), Lumineon (Grupo Ales)
area: 240m3, Entrance hall, student residency, Madrid
year: 2020
photography: Miguel de Guzmán / Rocío Romero www.imagensubliminal.com
status: permanent installation/ built

Technical data: area= 240m3 weight= 276kg; power= 2640 W/h