Chroma Key Protest

Chroma Key Protest

Solve Architects' entry for the 2019 Ice Breakers International Design Competition was selected as one of the four winning installation designs. Sited along Toronto's Queen's Quay, the competition brief invited designers and artists to work around the theme of Signal Transmission:

as an exploration of data, digital and analog communication, including the various modes and codes involved; it may also veer into the realm of biology, ecology and sociology. Simply, Signal Transmission is about how humans and other species speak - to each other and to our self, internally.

From Solve Architects' submission:

Twenty-five wooden buoys are anchored in the basin, each with an arm extending upward and holding a placard of bright chroma key green. Individually, the buoys could be mistaken for a new kind of marine marker, but as a group they resemble an organized group of protestors occupying a public space.

Chroma key green is commonly understood as a physical placeholder for a digital image or message. In this installation, the use of chroma key green in the context of a protest removes a specific message and invites the onlooker to derive their own meaning. Some may see the gathering as a show of solidarity: individuals bound by a common goal. Others may see the gathering as futile: individuals hopelessly attempting to manifest change. In either case the message transmitted by the placards is secondary to the presence of the protestors who – day after day – take to the streets.

The project was fabricated by Anex and installed from January to February, 2019.

See article on ArchDaily