Thus Arts Met Science in Singapore

Apparently Arts and Science are subjects poles apart.Arts needs imagination and creativity while Science is based on facts and theories but in Singapore, Arts and Science joins themselves to create an amazing display of most creative and mesmerizing arts enabled by cutting edge technology in the iconic Arts Science Museum, right at the foot of Marina Bay Sands.Designed by renowned architect Moshie Safdie, the lotus-inspired ArtScience Museum is made up of 10 “fingers” anchored by a unique round base in the middle. The design of each finger reveals different gallery spaces featuring skylights at the “fingertips” that illuminate the dramatically curved interior walls.The Museum’s roof channels rainwater through the central atrium of the building creating a 35-meter water drop into a small, reflecting pool.

After cruising in the Singapore River and waterfront, I got down at the jetty at the foot of Marina Bay. A gentle walk along the tree lined boulevard past the grand mall of Marina Bay towards the Helix Bridge leads one to the Arts Science Museum.There is an artificial pool with colorful aquatic flowers in bloom. The beauty of pool is a welcome respite from the view of concrete cityscape(impressing though) of the bay front.

When I visited(Sep 2016) there were two exhibitions ongoing — Future World Where Arts Meet Science and Big Bang Data. Future World is the permanent exhibition(at least for 3 years) and the Big Bang Data is a seasonal one(it travels through the world and it was its third stop in Singapore after London and Madrid). Both the exhibits draws a considerable money out of the pocket but the experience it delivers is commensurate.Future World showcases 16 art exhibits which are spectacular in creativity, imagination and innovation. All the digital exhibits are interactive, real time and responsive to human input and provides the output through stunning, life size art installations in immersive audio visual experience.

Flutter of Butterflies Beyond Borders, the patterns on the butterflies’ wings transform as they fly through space. As the work progresses, the butterflies fly seamlessly into the nearby installations, dissolving the concept of the artwork’s frame, and eliminating the boundaries between the works. This process ultimately creates an all-encompassing interactive installation.

The flight pattern of the butterflies in Flutter of Butterflies Beyond Borders is influenced by the state of the other works, as well as the behavior of the viewers: the butterflies gather in places where flowers bloom in the other works; and if a viewers touches a butterfly, it loses its life.

Crystal World uses accumulated light points to create a sculptural body, similar to the way distinct dots of color form an image in a pointillist painting. The particles of light are digitally controlled, and change based on the viewer’s interactivity with the work. The result is an installation consisting of an accumulation of lights, forming a sculpture that expresses the universe.Viewers are invited to enter and walk around within the three-dimensional light space. This movement affects the light particles and creates changes in the installation. The viewer’s position within the artwork also influences how the work is created; thus, the artwork is continuously changing.

100 Years Sea Animation Diorama is an edited version of 100 Years Sea movie, reducing the time frame from 100 years to approximately 10 minutes in order to give viewers a faster and more intense experience of 100 Years Sea. It uses a 20 meters screen which gives viewers the feeling that there is no border between the movie world and the real world, and the rising sea that eventually swallows the viewers.

Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled is in continuous change, over a period of one hour a seasonal year of flowers blossoms and scatters.It is rendered in real time by a computer program. The interaction between the viewer and the installation causes continuous change in the artwork; previous visual states can never be replicated, and will never reoccur.The flowers bud, grow, and blossom before their petals begin to wither, and eventually fade away. The cycle of growth and decay repeats itself in perpetuity. Depending on the proximity of the viewer to the work, the flowers shed their petals all at once, whither and die, or come to life and blossom once again.

There are other interactive art installations like Graffiti Nature where one can fill colors with crayons on paper to create flowers, insects,fishes or animals and on scanning those they come to life on the giant screen. Similarly another one Sketch Town where vehicles, airplanes,UFOs comes to life and traverses through Singapore landscape on the screen.There are several other impressive displays in the same.