Interactive Art +
Honorary Mention

Another Moon

Kimchi and Chips (KR)

Another Moon is a large-scale outdoor apparition that creates a technically sublime floating globe made from light in the sky. 40 towers collect the sun's energy during the day and project that light back into the sky at night, creating a second moon overhead where the beams tightly superimpose to create the three-dimensional form. The project was presented in the industrial ruins of the Zeche Zollverein (historically the most productive coal mine in Europe). The public artwork could be viewed up to 1km away, creating a focus to bring people back together in a post-corona era. 

Each night the lasers turn off one by one as their batteries deplete, in relation to how much sunshine there was on that particular day. This mechanism replays the fragile energy of the day, unwinding our on-demand instinct for energy that became prevalent during the era of coal power.  

The first commercial electric power plant began operation in 1882 next to Wall Street in Manhattan, triggering the second industrial revolution of electricity, capitalism, and information technologies. This global revolution brought with it an instinct of “supply and demand” to energy, where additional energy could be supplied whenever desired by adding more coal to the fire. 

In a post fossil-fuel era, our instinct must change again since renewable sources such as solar and wind do not supply in response to our demand, providing energy abundantly but chaotically. Our relationship with energy will be increasingly like the one we have with the internet (e.g. On a bad day, there’s little power available and you can’t run your washing machine. On a good day, there’s plenty of power and you can charge your car). Another Moon attempts to demonstrate this emerging relationship with energy and help its audience to create new instincts. By using the irregular energy source of a clear sunny sky to power a spectacle, the spectacle must interact with an unpredictable environment and is decoupled from our demand and control. This rhythm runs in contrast to that of the coal mine where the project was presented. 

Another Moon is a large-scale outdoor apparition that creates a technically sublime floating globe made from light in the sky. 40 towers collect the sun's energy during the day and project that light back into the sky at night, creating a second moon overhead where the beams tightly superimpose to create the three-dimensional form. The project was presented in the industrial ruins of the Zeche Zollverein (historically the most productive coal mine in Europe). The public artwork could be viewed up to 1km away, creating a focus to bring people back together in a post-corona era. 

Each night the lasers turn off one by one as their batteries deplete, in relation to how much sunshine there was on that particular day. This mechanism replays the fragile energy of the day, unwinding our on-demand instinct for energy that became prevalent during the era of coal power.  

The first commercial electric power plant began operation in 1882 next to Wall Street in Manhattan, triggering the second industrial revolution of electricity, capitalism, and information technologies. This global revolution brought with it an instinct of “supply and demand” to energy, where additional energy could be supplied whenever desired by adding more coal to the fire. 

In a post fossil-fuel era, our instinct must change again since renewable sources such as solar and wind do not supply in response to our demand, providing energy abundantly but chaotically. Our relationship with energy will be increasingly like the one we have with the internet (e.g. On a bad day, there’s little power available and you can’t run your washing machine. On a good day, there’s plenty of power and you can charge your car). Another Moon attempts to demonstrate this emerging relationship with energy and help its audience to create new instincts. By using the irregular energy source of a clear sunny sky to power a spectacle, the spectacle must interact with an unpredictable environment and is decoupled from our demand and control. This rhythm runs in contrast to that of the coal mine where the project was presented. 

kimchiandchips.com/works/anothermoon

Artwork by Kimchi and Chips (Mimi Son, Elliot Woods) 

Control and calibration: Kimchi and Chips 

Mechanical engineering: Kimchi and Chips in collaboration with LaserAnimation Sollinger 

Technicians: Jin Lee, Donghwi Chris Kang, Boeun Kim, Syemin Park 

Installation team: Blue Wheels Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH 

Another Moon was commissioned by Stiftung Zollverein's NEW NOW Festival funded by the Ministerium of Art and Science of the State of North Rhine Westfalia. 

Project supported by RAG Stiftung, Arts Council Korea – ARKO, 한국문화예술위원회, Fund for Korean Art Abroad (KAMS).  

Special thanks to LaserAnimation Sollinger for 5 years of support for the Another Moon project 

Kimchi and Chips (KR) is a Seoul based art collective founded in 2009 by Mimi Son (KR) and Elliot Woods (EN). Their practice understands the arts, sciences, and philosophy not as distant disciplines that must be bridged, but as alternative maps on the same territory, that can be employed simultaneously to navigate the territory more easily. Their installation series *Drawing in the Air*, studies mass and space-time and brings together Einstein’s relativism, Buddhist philosophy, and the discrepancy between reality and images. It led to the creation of the public artwork *Halo*. Their research-based approach has made them pioneers of a number of artistic formats both conceptually and in execution—specifically within the fields of volumetric images in fog and 3D projection onto non-designed forms. They were the first Korean artists to win the Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica within the field of media art. By releasing their techniques online as over 100 open source code libraries, countless other practitioners have adopted the studio’s understanding and incorporated it into their own work. 

Kimchi and Chips (KR) is a Seoul based art collective founded in 2009 by Mimi Son (KR) and Elliot Woods (EN). Their practice understands the arts, sciences, and philosophy not as distant disciplines that must be bridged, but as alternative maps on the same territory, that can be employed simultaneously to navigate the territory more easily. Their installation series *Drawing in the Air*, studies mass and space-time and brings together Einstein’s relativism, Buddhist philosophy, and the discrepancy between reality and images. It led to the creation of the public artwork *Halo*. Their research-based approach has made them pioneers of a number of artistic formats both conceptually and in execution—specifically within the fields of volumetric images in fog and 3D projection onto non-designed forms. They were the first Korean artists to win the Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica within the field of media art. By releasing their techniques online as over 100 open source code libraries, countless other practitioners have adopted the studio’s understanding and incorporated it into their own work.