48 PILLARS
CLIENT : CITY OF BARCELONA (2025)
48 PILLARS is a monumental yet minimalist kinetic installation. 48 pillars are arranged in a matrix pattern, evoking the keys of a piano dislocated in space. Beams of light sweep across these vertical columns, triggering a perfectly synchronized ballet of light, shadow and sound. 48 PILLARS unfolds in three acts - dawn, day and dusk - each one a sensitive variation that transforms our perception of space. By turns meditative, urban or festive, each phase conjures up a distinct atmosphere, offering spectators an intense, immersive experience.
CONTEXT
Invited by the City of Barcelona as part of the Llum Festival, and on the initiative of curators Martin Pošta and Maria Güell Ordis, STROBOSCOPE designed an in situ installation in the heart of the Poblenou district, a former industrial and working-class bastion of the Catalan capital. The work takes place in the inner courtyard of the Can Framis museum, an atypical space surrounded by old factory chimneys - vestiges of a manufacturing past. This context provides an ideal setting for a dialogue between heritage, architectural sculpture and digital creation.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
STROBOSCOPE offers a sensitive reading of light, space and sound, free from complex digital devices. Far from technological maximalism, the installation favors a direct, intuitive and corporeal relationship with the work. By day, 48 PILLARS unfolds in its raw materiality: a sculptural structure, both horizontal and vertical, composed of 48 three-meter-high pillars. The whole evokes a fragmented landscape, an open architectural score echoing its surroundings. As night falls, the installation undergoes a metamorphosis.
Activated by a system of projectors, lasers and shadows, it becomes a luminous material in perpetual modulation - a living architecture, shaped by temporality and the movement of bodies in space. Its dramaturgy is constructed in three acts, on an eight-minute loop: dawn, day and dusk. Each act conjures up singular aesthetic universes - organic, mechanical, contemplative - and offers a rhythmic reading of the daily cycle, between emergence, tension and appeasement.
CREDITS
48 PILLARS
8mn - 2025
Aluminium pillars, moving lights, lasers, Surround sound system, Haze
LLUM FESTIVAL - Barcelone
Concept, Direction, Music: STROBOSCOPE STUDIO
Coordination / Administration: Marie Dussart
Curated by Maria Güell Ordis and Martin Posta
Artwork Production: RENT EFFECT PRO
Photo: Xavi Torrent