The Hydro Cobweb installation is a reconception of nature, a large biotic machine suspended in air that fills the areas of the Replay Store like an enormous spider web suspended between its green walls. Like a living organism, it has a central part consisting of a large Plexiglass sphere where florescent lighting heats seawater which evaporates and condenses in the walls as fresh water. The desalinated and mineralised water feeds satellite pods containing plants grown using aeroponics technology. The idea is one of a controlled experiment in a scientific laboratory which contrasts yet closely communicates with the large vertical green installation of the Replay Store and lets nature run its natural course.
The central themes are ecology, technology and water: it is a study of the relationship between living organisms and the surrounding environment, an awareness that technology will lead to a new way of coexisting with nature and the main theme of water as something which is essential to life, health and development.
Photos and video courtesy Giulio Boem