Salt Worldwide

"Salt Worldwide.“ vividly tells the story of the salt around the world by simulating a virtual world made out of salt. There are 34 touch sensitive salt crystals spreading over the map highlighting salt concentrated areas in the world. According to the amount of salt located in these regions, millions of salt particles emit continuously over the world map, slide down along the mountain ridges, then diffuse and flow along the currents in the seas.

When touched the crystals start to glow. From underneath the crystal grains of salt pour over the table and merge into an information window, which displays details of the chosen salt mine through text, images and movies.

In a 10 minute long guided mode, the tour guide explains the salt production, consumption, usage, and other relevant topics. Each topic is explained by a dynamically generated animation; e.g. he salt particles that formed the tower Taipei 101 to symbolize daily amount of salt production worldwide transforms into a path between Brazil and Japan to represent salt trade routes between countries across continents.

Standing next to centuries old salt mine technology, the installation offers a new approach of learning through a dynamic and immersive experience. Through the computational design process, the behavior of the salt world is tweaked by algorithmic parameters, thus result in a living and evolving experience that changes over time.