Interactive light sculpture show at National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts

The National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) is marking another step in its development with a five-night outdoor performance extravaganza.

The Preparatory Office for the Weiwuying Center for the Arts commissioned Taipei-based Wonders of Art International to create a production to celebrate its development, and the result is The First Seeds, an interactive light sculpture show that combines 3D video mapping projections with live performances and music.

The projections cover an area that is 223m wide and 39m high and includes the open-air theater in the building’s roof, said Chen, who is also the director of The First Seeds.

The show tells the history of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, which is in an area that served as a military base during the Japanese colonial era and then became a camp for the Eighth Army in the 1950s.

The Kaohsiung City Government in 2006 launched an international architectural competition to select a designer and developer, which was won by Mecanoo the following year.

Mecanoo’s design was inspired by the banyan trees on the site and Chen said the performance is subtitled "Under the Banyan Trees," as the video projections begin with the flourishing of a single tree that grows into a forest.

The show pays tribute to Kaohsiung’s maritime history, as well as its development into an industrial center and its hope to become a major performance and cultural center, hence the “seed” imagery, Chen said.

This news item was based in the article published by Taipei Times.