A corrugated word-cloud rises from the earth, presenting a jumble of phrases that hover on the edge of comprehensibility. Inspired by the Artists’ personal experience visiting the library as a child, the algorithmically-driven word organization references the experience of reading many books simultaneously. Phrases from fiction, history, biography, and science swim around in one’s head and recombine into phrases that suggest new meanings.

 

Wondrous was created through direct interaction with the community. Local visitors to the library contributed words from a diverse range of their favorite books. The visual word patterns were developed algorithmically to enable the viewer to notice phrases and connections inspired by their own experiences. At night, intensely colorful lighting amplifies the ordered chaos of the word-cloud by projecting overlapping versions of the text onto the library wall and viewers alike, enveloping them as extensions of a single greater experience and blurring the line between artwork and environment.