Imagine giant, flexible, floating bubbles. Now imagine sitting underneath them on a beach towel, sharing your sketchbook, and brainstorming with passer-bys. Come check out the Bubbles installation, at the Materials and Application site in Silver Lake, which has been slowing down traffic ever since September. It’s an adaptable space where large air-bags (or “bubbles”) dance around visitors, inflating and deflating as they explore the site. The installation asks for a hands-on approach: if you push, tug, and play with the bubbles, the bubbles change their form in return.

Materials and Application are also hosting a lecture series here titled “Blow Up Your Mind”, focused on interactive media, innovative use of materials, and collaboration. The installation was created by a team that included FoxLin, NonDesigns, Brand Name Labels, Darius Miller, Alex Kilian, and other volunteers. They have a construction/installation blog here.

This installation is a big idea in a small package: a flexible space to promote social interaction, spatial diversity, and surprise in the suburban landscape. Blow up, stretch, exhale, inflate, shrink, disappear, float out to the Bubbles Installation at 1619 Silver Lake Boulevard sometime this season.