Cyberhelvetia

Biel, Switzerland

Photo © Emanuel Raab

Architects: 3deluxe

Location: Biel, Switzerland
Year: 2002

Themed Installation – Taking its cue from traditional Swiss swimming baths, the 'Cyberhelvetia' Pavilion was conceived as a place of personal encounters and communication. Nowadays, communication takes place in many different ways, irrespective of location and language. Even a shared swim no longer requires real water: A blue shining glass block replaced the real swimming basin – visitors can immerse themselves in the multilayered atmosphere of a virtually expanded reality and bathe in light and sound.

The so-called pool was filled with 'virtual water', which visitors both on the spot and on the Internet enhanced by adding imaginative life forms. The reciprocal interaction between real and virtually present people and the digital creatures constantly created new atmospheric images on the projected surface of the pool, so that the overall impression was essentially of a living organism. The virtual water also responded to climatic conditions in the form of data from a weather station on the pavilion roof. Like Lake Bienne, the artificial surface of the water changed during the course of the day and seasons, and thus linked the artificial with nature as well as the virtual with what can be experienced in reality.

Various interactive games on the surface and along the sides of the glass block offered guests the opportunity to make contact with other guests in an unconventional way.