The digital totem of LPA Study for the beaches of the Canary Islands has just won gold at the Grand Prix du Design 2021. And it has good reason: this beautiful 2,5 meter high "digital lighthouse" mixes art and technology, the sacred and the pagan.
What does he do? A few things: it works like a seasonal sundial (analog), like a weather station (digital). It is a local information aggregator for visitors to beaches in the Canary Islands, and celebrates local history and culture. And then I like it: a good reason to talk about it, I think :)
A large wooden ring
The wooden ring has a hole in the top that allows sunlight to shine through on the winter solstice, illuminating a bronze marker on the ground that commemorates the islands' exceptional climate.
The design of this lighthouse is a digitally produced wooden ring that reinterprets the ceramic artwork of the islands' indigenous people. The sun god Magheq, who is often represented through circular shapes and geometric designs, is reflected in an essential and impactful way in this image.
Digital cultural legacies, for small totems that know of the future
The stone ring is positioned vertically in a north-south direction. The designs carved into the surface commemorate the many and varied cultural differences of the different islands found here. A video screen on the north wall transmits real-time environmental data and other information about visitor services in the region. Solar panels are installed on the south side to charge the "monument" (actually I don't even know what to call it, perhaps totem is actually more suitable).
“The totem infrastructure network recognizes the more than two millennia of creative interaction between the sun and the Canary Islands,” says LPA Studio. “From ancient times to today's sun and beach tourism industry, as well as the pressing concern of transitioning to a renewable energy economy.”
I like. I already said it? Well. I like such a strong sense of contemporaneity, the fact that it narrates the past and present, that it narrates the convergence of history and culture through technology. It has its own simplicity, and its own magnificence. I would like every country to have a totem, or rather a "trinket" like that to represent it a little.
And maybe join them on the net, like in this other project.
