The Shape of Wind

- 2026

Project Type | Interactive 

Credits:

Ke Jyun Wu

Have you ever thought about... What does wind look like?

I grew up at the foot of a mountain in Taiwan. The living room had a full wall of windows facing west. In summer we left them open. Around three or four in the afternoon, sunlight would slip through the trees outside and land on the floor tiles in patches. When the house was quiet, you'd see the shadows shift before you felt the wind. I never thought much of it. That was just how home looked.


After I moved to the US in 2024, I started spending a lot of time alone. Staring at things without really meaning to. One afternoon I noticed light on the floor, shaped almost the same way. I stood there for a while. It wasn't the same tree, but my body didn't seem to care.

What stayed with me wasn't the homesickness part. It was the relationship between wind and shadow. You can't see wind, but when a shadow moves, you know. When water wrinkles, you know. When a leaf lifts and spins, you know. We've probably been seeing wind our whole lives. No one really puts it that way, though.

In this work, light and shadow are projected inside a frame on the wall. Always swaying, just barely. The air in the room is enough to keep it gently moving. When you blow toward the sensor, that invisible stream of breath gets caught by the shadow — it sways wider, the light scatters. Your breath takes shape.

What does wind actually look like? Floating leaves, like the ones in Synchronic Tides? Ripples on a pond? I can't quite say.

At the very least, I saw its shape in a shadow.