It’s Raining Bronze In Singapore

Changi Airport has just revealed the brand new ‘poetic’ art installation at their check-in hall in Terminal 1. Named ‘Kinetic Rain’, it is now the world’s largest (and possibly most complicated) moving art sculpture. 1,216 bronze droplets connected to computer-controlled motors create waves, shapes and random patterns that constantly change the halls interior similar to the moving fountains outside The Bellagio in Las Vegas. The individual super-accurate motors control the movement of each droplet, allowing the droplets to make up multiple different aviation-related shapes.

Among the different forms the droplets take are an aeroplane, a hot air balloon, a kite, a dragon and a flock of birds. Kinetic Rain, was created over a span of 20 months. Artists, programmers and technologists all came together to work out how to create a true masterpiece in the Check-In Hall. The newly refurbished terminal is dubbed the ‘Tropical City’ in keeping with Singapore’s Garden City status and where rain is very much a part of the tropical climate, no where would rain-drops appear more fitting.

Changi Airport Group Airport Operations Senior Vice President Yeo Kia Thye mentioned: “When we decided to upgrade T1 in 2008, we were mindful that people have fond memories of the terminal, including the old Mylar Cords, the circular curtain of water that straddled three stories of the building. We wanted an art sculpture – which we found in Kinetic Rain – that was able to add the signature touch linking back to T1’s illustrious past in a new and exciting way.

“With more than a thousand raindrops working together in harmony, Kinetic Rain also symbolises the thousands in the airport community who work together every day to provide our passengers and visitors with a positively surprising and memorable Changi Experience.” It seems to somewhat compete, and perhaps trump Heathrow’s art sculpture for Terminal ‘East’

Technology doesn’t stop here though… An audio commentary and official video are also available for visitors who wish to know more about Kinetic Rain. All they have to do is scan the QR code present at the display boards at the T1 Departure Check-in Hall with their smartphones. Making the airport a gallery in its own right. At least there won’t be some grumpy security guard going ‘shhhhhh….’