A Squid-like Cloud in Silverlake

One of the goals of DnA is to stay on top of the most interesting design events going on around town. So I am delighted that DnA has been recently…

One of the goals of DnA is to stay on top of the most interesting design events going on around town. So I am delighted that DnA has been recently joined by a roving design aficionado and photographer, Nicholas Mercure. In the last week Nicholas has been all over town, tracking events, and he’ll be filling this blog with his visual reports. First off, the Squid Capsule.

‘Squid Capsule’ is an installation by the Los Angeles design partnership Layer, on show at Materials & Applications (M&A). Over the space of three weekends, Emily White and Lisa Little of Layer, together with a team of volunteers, transformed M&A’s outdoor courtyard with forty suspended transparent vinyl membranes into a plastic cloud chamber, intended to “isolate and amplify subtle changes in Los Angeles’ placid, if somewhat monotonous, summer climate.” “Climate change,” they explain, “is enacted here as a delicate drama of temperature and humidity, with air as the medium and water as the agent of change.” So why the name Squid Capsule? “Here’s Little and White: “As we were working on the piece and assessing its ability to be translucent, transparent (and even opaque in some light), we started thinking about creatures of the deep sea. The squid, with its translucent flesh and morphological similarities to the tentacles of our piece, became our project mascot, and eventually part of its title.” The show is open daily through September, free to the public.