French artist Elise Morin and architect Clémence Eliard just unveiled a shimmering art installation made from 65,000 discarded CDs at the Halle d'Aubervilliers of Paris's Centquatre.
The undulating sea of shiny plastic was sewn together by hand to form a blanket of CDs that stretches over a series of large domes, taking up 500 square meters of the naturally daylit hall. The metallic surface reflects light, commenting on the use of petroleum, its byproducts, and the resulting waste.
WasteLandscape is an artificial landscape of hilly features blanketed with a sea of CDs. The 65,000 CDs were collected, sorted and then sewn together by hand to create an undulating and reflective surface, which was then draped over the hills.
CDs were designed to serve as storage media, however their fragile nature and limited storage capacity have led them to be often forgotten about and condemned to a long life as waste in dumps. Made from petroleum, the plastic discs practically never decompose.
Now at least some of those CDs have a second life in this traveling art installation, which made its debut at the Halle d’Aubervilliers where it will stay until September 10th before moving on to the next location.
The Halle was chosen because of its large skylight, which floods the space with lots of natural daylight and really makes the CDs shine. Each time the installation is created, the reflecting slick of CDs will be laid out in a sea of metallic dunes. The end result is soothing, but was born from disorder. At the end of the installation’s tour, all of the CDs will be recycled into polycarbonate.
