Project Description
The intention of this project is to create a simulation of water with sunlight, by being inspired by the abandoned Karez and the awe of nature."Karez" is a great hydraulic project in Xinjiang, deep inland in northwest China. It is one of the three major ancient Chinese projects, and the Great Wall, Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal as well. However, it gradually fell into disuse. In order to recreate the scenario of flowing water in Karez, we bring in light from the top of the channel to simulate rainwater and cast ripples into the channel.River’s rising above the head tends to manifest the force of nature, that visitors have to look up feeling the “flowing water”. In this design, we focus on expressing two scenarios , one is “wash in light”, the other is “touch the wave”.First,vertical light rain pours down from the hole, projects shadow ripples on the ground. People can reach out their hands and receive a divine baptism in the light rain, a ritual that purifies the mind and expresses his worship of the Creator. Second,people can raise their hands to touch the shaking light wires as the river, and restore the daily interactions that, in ancient times, people lived with the flowing underground rivers, watering, washing clothes and making a living. The device is installed in the shaft head and deep into the channel interior, using optical fiber and many convex glasses to get daylight into the dark Karez. From top to bottom,there are the lighting cover (the bottom edge of the lighting cover are embedded with local fluorite and the rest of lighting cover are convex lens.), optical fiber（one optical fiber includes light optical fiber and side-lighting optical fiber）, and 2 optical fiber holders are in the middle. During the daytime, the sunlight enters the convex lens and be refracted, also shines on the fluorite, and then enters the light optical fibers below,at the end enters the side-lighting optical fibers. After being exposed to sunlight during the daytime, fluorite can glows at night to mark a light-road from oasis to the spring of life, Mt. Tianshan, at night. The slender optical fibers hang between two neighbouring pitheads to form a suspended light river in the air, while the fat optical fibers just hang vertically at one pithead with different lengths to form superimposed light-ripples on the ground.