Chinese artist Lu Xinjian has been inspired by maps and cities for years, often collected in his increasingly large-scale acrylic on canvas series City DNA. But his newest work City Light expands on these inspirations, taking the flat abstractions and mounting them onto the wall with neon.

Using Google Earth images of the artist’s current home, the sprawling metropolis of Shanghai, Xinjian renders the map loosely in his abstract style. The resulting plans are rendered in neon on a solid black background, and run on a flash program which controls the timing of each area’s lines being illuminated. Starting with a small, centrally-located blue square, the rest of the  surrounding area follows, until the entire piece is lit. Representing the rapid growth of the modern metropolis, the network of neon light tubes takes the language of city communication and visually abstracts the idea of rapid expansion. (via always

tumblr_mz3pkuVYKp1qdfkh1o5_1280 tumblr_mz3pkuVYKp1qdfkh1o1_1280 tumblr_mz3pkuVYKp1qdfkh1o6_1280 tumblr_mz3pkuVYKp1qdfkh1o7_1280 tumblr_mz3pkuVYKp1qdfkh1o2_1280 tumblr_mz3pkuVYKp1qdfkh1o3_1280 tumblr_mz3pkuVYKp1qdfkh1o4_1280 img_8_1387807338_5075140835d0bc504791c76b04c33d2bLu Xinjian Creates A Neon Aerial Map Of Shanghai Using Google Earth appeared first on Beautiful/Decay Artist & Design.instudio and designboom)