VOUW Studio unveiled City Gazing Dubai, a new light art installation that highlights human progress, connection and sustainability.
The installation is a rendition of satellite images of Dubai made with 18m by 11m of LEDs set to music. It is suspended over DIFC Gate Avenue, where it will be on display and open to the public through the 29th of January 2022.
“City Gazing Dubai gives people the chance to experience the ‘overview effect’, the feeling that astronauts have when they see our planet from the vastness space. It’s an awareness that life on Earth is fragile and that we are all connected. When people stand together beneath City Gazing Dubai and look up, they too feel united by a sense of wonder,” said artist Mingus Vogel, who designed the work with partner Justus Bruns.
Visitors who stand beneath the large, illuminated map of Dubai are treated to a dynamic light display those pulses to a vibrant soundscape. The work shows how Dubai has grown from a few key arterial roads into the unique, internationally renowned metropolis it is today. By showcasing the city’s development against the backdrop of the desert sky, City Gazing Dubai is intended to send a message about human achievement, social connection and sustainability.
VOUW is an Amsterdam-based design studio working at the crossroads of art, technology and social cohesion. Mingus Vogel co-founded VOUW with Justus Bruns in 2017. The pair met while studying industrial engineering at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. City Gazing Dubai draws on the duo’s engineering skills: it is made from over 180 m lights. The entire structure is hoisted 8 m into the air.