Hyperview Barcelona is the first stop on the visit to Mirador Torre Glòries, a vantage point located at the bottom of the tower, on the first basement floor. An observation deck… without windows.
It is a dynamic space with artistic installations created using data on Barcelona gathered in real-time.
The visit to this space makes it possible to enjoy the beauty of Barcelona’s big data and discover views of the city that are unknown to us. Observing it beyond what we see at first glance, we can understand Barcelona to be a living being with a pulse that marks our way of inhabiting it.
A metropolis is much more than what can be perceived. It is a dynamic environment of relationships, transactions and flows. Hyperview Barcelona presents the city as a living organism that beats, with rhythms and cycles where people, ecosystems, infrastructures and technologies all intertwine. A view of the set of frictions, interactions and systems we rely on to live and whose sustainability depends, in turn, on the use we make of them.
Hyperview Barcelona combines art, music, technology, scientific information and large-format audiovisual productions. Some of these pieces of data art are constantly changing because they are fed, partly, with real-time data gathered by the city’s systems and infrastructures.
This incredible vantage point has four installations:
This piece is the prologue of Hyperview Barcelona and has been designed to show new ways of perceiving and reading the city. It is a device that, based on a kaleidoscopic view, covers the different frequencies of Barcelona. Like a radio tuner, it reveals that the city’s bandwidth is much broader, just like the view offered by Hyperview Barcelona.
Its images show architectural, graphic and also natural textures and patterns of Barcelona. Images that, rather than explain, suggest.
Barcelonians is a forest of delicate paper sculptures that allow the city to be explored through the diversity of species that inhabit it. Here the stories of the non-humans, who are also neighbours of Barcelona, are told; their place in the history of the city’s traditions and the interdependences that people establish with them.
This non-anthropocentric discourse about the city focuses on its other citizens and reinforces the idea that Barcelona cannot be explained without including pollen, jellyfish, the many species of birds and even the urban microbiome.
The figures are the work of artists Joan Sallas and Xiaoxian Huang, recognised worldwide for their folded paper sculptures and as scholars of origami. A total of 132 pieces, all made of paper and full of details, poetically evoke the species they represent.
Some of the figures are accompanied by a screen with a brief visual poem in which the species themselves speak to us.
A spectacular, large-format surround projection that is 27 metres long and 4 metres high. Its contents are related to dimensions of the city that are not firmly geolocalised and whose represented activity cannot be well-expressed on a map. It is, in a way, a snapshot of the different types of atmospheres of Barcelona, in some cases, using real-time data on the city.
A film view of the skies of Barcelona and their beauty, of the winds that constantly blow, of the sea that is an extension of the city and of the soundscapes that often go completely unnoticed.
The final installation of Hyperview Barcelona shows the metabolic processes of the city, understood as an organism that, in turn, is composed of other organisms. A system of systems. Rhythms imagines the inhalations and exhalations of Barcelona as its rhythms and flows, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. The city inhales oxygen and exhales CO2 but it also inhales transport containers and exhales waste, inhales energy and exhales pollution…
Based on big data for Barcelona, Rhythms shows the city as a being, full of life. The installation has a unique configuration: a holographic screen formed by three superimposed screens on the same axis. This composition plays with contents and depth, creating a sensation of watching a holograph that floats in the space.
Sirena, the music for Hyperview Barcelona, was conceived as an additional data art installation. It is not just background music for the room’s four installations. It is an artistic intervention, holistically created for the entire space in the form of its fifth installation. Its creators are Maria Arnal and John Talabot.
This piece of generative music is built in response to the constant beat and breathing of Barcelona. As in the case of Atmospheres and Rhythms, it is fed dynamically by Barcelona’s big data. It mutates each day according to the wind’s speed, if it is raining or sunny, the sea’s temperature, the PM10 levels… A living soundtrack that changes according to the city’s state.
