Architizer News
Installation Of The Week: Luzinterruptus Fills Melbourne Streets With 10,000 Unwanted Books
September 13, 2012
All images via Luzinterruptus
Last month we wrote about the Spanish art collective Luzinterruptus and their latest urban installation that used light to illuminate environmental issues at the Gewerbemuseum in Switzerland (read more about the ‘Oh, Plastiksack!’ installation here). Well Luzinterruptus is at it again, recently releasing images of their massive, traffic-stopping installation in Melbourne, Australia, commissioned as a part of the Light in Winter festival. The theme of this year’s festival was “reading,” so this past June the team traveled to Melbourne to recreate Literature vs Traffic, a piece they previously had installed in New York City. Read more.
While the installation in New York City had been a far more subversive undertaking, the recreation in Melbourne allowed the artists to expand upon the project, allowing it to grow for a month, eventually making it their largest installation to date. Using 10,000 books that had been collected by the Salvation Army after being discarded from public libraries, Luzinterruptus began creating an intimate public space that encourages reading within the modern Federation Square.
The installation aimed to take control of the public space “in which the traffic withdrew, yielding ground to the modest power of the written word.” The dimly lit books began overflowing in the streets, stealing space amongst the dense traffic. On the closing night of the installation, the books were offered up to the visiting pedestrians, each allowed to choose their favorite books out of the thousands presented to them.
[via mymodernmet]


















