We’ve picked the bullet shells as the medium for talking about the tragic events that took place during Warsaw Rising and WWII in general. Bullet shells by themselves are the symbols of what remains after someone, somewhere for some distresfull reason pulled the trigger. They are materialised memories of the warfare. So we’ve come up with an idea - what if we’re going to depict the staggering war statistics with this more than adequate medium - forming the actual numbers with the large number of recycled bullet shells ? What if the audience of the museum is going to be exposed to the continuous spectacle of the thousands of bullet shells falling, then forming the numbers related to tragic events of Warsaw Rising and then falling apart with immensive rumble, followed by the brief moment of meaningful silence ? And that’s exactly what we’ve done - the KINETIC DATA SCULPTURE

We’ve created unique, one of a kind, machine/installation for displaying up to 5 digit numbers formed by the falling bullet shells catched by the magnets. The whole construction weighed more than a ton - consisting of steel/aluminium construction, 5 industrial transmission belts and 70 linear pneumatic actuators. Each of the segments was equipped with dozen of neodymium magnets and all that machinery was hidden behind the large (3x1,5m) aluminium surface on which the bullet shells were sliding down. Thanks to custom made electronics we were able to move the magnetic segments near the surface in an appropriate sequence to catch the sliding bullets thus forming the desired digits. After the whole number was formed and the related description projected onto the surface next to it, all the actuators were released and all the shells fell down, to be then moved to the top again thanks to transmission belts.

We’ve provided a innovative, memorable and unexpected, multisensory museum experience filled with both emotional and educational values. The Museum employees estimated that the installation has been experienced live by ~ 130 000 guests and that area of our installation was constantly crowded by the people observing and interacting with the piece. The installation has been also featured in Polish internet media ( including the biggest one - gazeta.pl ) helping to spread a word about the Museum, the Rising event itself and it’s aniversary - all that given 0 PR budget. The installation has also been noticed on top international sites such as The Creators Project, fubiz, booooooom.com, fastcodesing.com etc.

The Warsaw Rising Museum is one of the most renowned museums in Poland and it’s well know for the openness to new mediums and ways for telling the tragic and heroic story of the Warsaw Uprising. We are aware that traditional exhibition forms such as touchscreens and static artifacts and presenting plain facts aren’t enough to evoke emotions adequate to presented facts. That’s why we aimed for the real, visceral, memorable, experience rather than just clever presentation of raw facts. Everything - from the choice of materials (cold, rough, rusted steel), medium (bullet shells) to the auditory aspects ( harsh noise of the falling shells, followed by the brief moment of meaningful silence ) has been used to evoke emotions along with the educational take away for the visitors.

We’ve been approached by the Warsaw Rising Museum curator with a challenge to create a remarkable temporary installation for the 71st anniversary of the Warsaw Rising and 70th anniversary of the end of WWII in europe that would present the tragic statistics related to those events. The only other constraints given were the budget (in 20 000 euro range), and the timeframe for production (we effectively had ~ 1,5 months to produce the piece). It’s worth to mention that Warsaw Rising Museum is amongst the most visited museums in Poland with over 500 000 visitors per year and that the Warsaw Rising was one of the most dramatic and heroic events in Polish history and is still in peoples hearts these days.