Just to confuse Santa

THE CHRISTMAS TREE at Siam Center is 10 metres tall – but it’s hanging upside down from the ceiling. It’s a merry, mind-blowing art installation by the New York design studio SOFTlab.

The studio’s founder, Michael Szivos, and designers Elizabeth Anne and Alexandra Mikaela Marla spent nearly three months cutting up 4,000 Mylar translucent red and reflective silver sheets. Once in Bangkok, the pieces had to be painstakingly assembled by hand, with the help of design students from Chulalongkorn, Silpakorn and Bangkok universities. 

Covered with more than 1,200 LED lights, the tree sculpture – called “INvertical” – looks like a twinkling stream. Not a single shopper has failed to see it and, more often than not, they go, Wow!”

Chadatip Chutrakul, chief executive at Siam Piwat, the firm that operates the mall, takes great delight in showing off the sculpture hanging above Atrium 2. She’s quick to offer reassurances about safety.

“We used a customised technique with special materials that are very thin and light and suitable for hanging art pieces,” Chadatip explains. “We chose SOFTlab because it’s behind some very unique and creative works that have been internationally recognised. SOFTlab put every effort into channelling different ideas and the imagination to create a stunning work for the first time in Asia.”

Szivos unwittingly undercuts safety reassurances by referring to “INvertical” as a “gravity-driven piece”, but it’s obvious that the tree is not going anywhere, at least not until it’s hoisted down after the holiday season.

“By inverting the form of the Christmas tree, the shape not only becomes structural, but will produce a sense of wonder and surprise as visitors move around it,” Szivos says.

He founded his studio shortly after earning a degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York. SOFTlab has since designed projects in almost every medium, from digitally fabricated sculpture to immersive video installations. It’s collaborated with many artists, publications and institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Hall of Science, the New York Times and Surface magazine. 

Szivos and his team covered the tree in more than 1,200 LED lights suspended from the “branches” in such a way that they move gently to and fro, making it look like the tree is alive. “The translucent red and reflective silver are meant to reinforce the festive nature of the installation and also enhance any change in light through the combination of the transparency, movement and reflectivity.”

Creating “a contemporary interpretation of a tradition that’s hundreds of years old”, the team used customised software and fabrication tools to make each of the 4,000 surface pieces. 

“Each unique panel is laser-cut from Mylar materials,” Szivos adds. “Although the piece is fairly large, the surface is extremely thin, weighing only 200 pounds. The surface only maintains its shape once it’s completely installed and hanging, allowing gravity to complete its form. 

“Technology that is customised using the latest available tools and software allows us to make a completely custom piece that only works within the atrium of the Siam Center.”