Ai Hasegawa

Ai Hasegawa:







Ai Hasegawa
Work from Extreme Environment Love Hotel
Article / Interview reposted from We Make Money Not Art - Image credits: Anthony Dunne
“… Extreme Environment Love Hotel simulates impossible places to go such as the Earth of three hundred million years ago (during the Carboniferous period), or the surface of Jupiter by manipulating invisible but ever-present environmental factors, for example atmospheric conditions and gravity
Our bodies would struggle to survive if we were propelled back to the Carboniferous period. It is estimated that during that time, the peak oxygen content of the atmosphere was as high as 35%, compared to 21% today. This oxygen level resulted in insect and amphibian gigantism–creatures whose size is constrained by respiratory systems that are limited in their ability to diffuse oxygen. For example, the ancestor of the dragonfly, the Meganeura, grew up to seventy-five centimeters due to the huge concentration of oxygen in the air. However, such high levels of oxygen would be toxic to the fragile bodies of human beings.
Life on Jupiter doesn’t sound very pleasant for us either. The atmospheric environment of the largest planet within the Solar System is one of strong gravity, high pressure, strong winds, and extremely cold temperatures.
How might our bodies change, struggle or even adapt with varying conditions around us?
The first of Ai Hasegawa’s Extreme Environment Love Hotel room, the carboniferous one, is currently on view at the work in progress show of the Royal College of Art. The prototypes show how couples would have to carry a suitcase containing higher levels of oxygen that recreate the atmosphere of the Carboniferous period, they would also be surrounded by plants similar to the ones that proliferated in the warm and humid climate: large trees covered with bark and huge ferns growing in swamps.
If you want, you might probably be able to make a baby under the hyper gravity…” – We Make Money Not Art