This sculpture will get 'em all misty at Coachella

April 7, 2009 | 7:31 pm

Culture Monster has received the designs for a large-scale sculpture that will make its debut next week at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.

The work, titled "Elastic Plastic Sponge," was designed by Ball-Nogues Studio in Echo Park in collaboration with students at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. News of the project was first reported on Culture Monster in February.

In an interview today, Benjamin Ball, the lead designer on the project, said the installation will be 250 feet long and 25 feet wide, and is made almost entirely of plastic tubing. The sculpture is expected to be finished by Thursday and will have taken about 12 weeks to create.

And no doubt, this festival-goers will find this to be one cool sculpture: It's designed to spray water on passers-by. The firm incorporated a misting system into the design that is intended to provide relief to people under the hot desert sun, Ball said. "It's all about drawing people together and creating a community within the festival."

Students at SCI-Arc studied rock fans at festivals around the world, including Woodstock and Glastonbury, in order to develop their design for "Elastic Plastic Sponge."

The installation will be between the Sahara and Gobi tents. Ball said the plan is to reconfigure the sponge-like sculpture into different shapes throughout the festival, which runs from April 17 to 19 in Indio.

-- David Ng

Photo: Rendering of "Elastic Plastic Sponge." Courtesy of SCI-Arc