The Expo 2020 Water Feature, also known as Surreal, pushes the boundaries of a typical fountain. Instead of shooting up into the air, the water falls, and instead of just waltzing to music, it invites its age-old nemesis fire for company. Mark Fuller, CEO and founder of California-based Water Entertainment Technologies (WET), tells Gulf News the inspiration comes from the 4,000-year-old gold ring – the very piece of jewellery that helped write the lore of Expo 2020 Dubai.
Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/2YDFLjQ
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #Expo2020Dubai #WaterFeature
Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/2YDFLjQ
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #Expo2020Dubai #WaterFeature
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00WED began our involvement in Dubai back with the Burj Al Arab and then of course followed
00:22by the Burj Khalifa fountain and now Expo and a few others in between.
00:27The biggest fountain we've ever done and it still stands today is the Dubai fountain.
00:32I believe that remains the largest fountain on planet earth.
00:35But what we've had the opportunity to do here is in many ways I think are most exciting
00:40on our best.
00:41In that we've created something completely different than what anyone else expects from
00:46a water feature.
00:47I mean the water starts at the top and falls down, most fountains start at the bottom and
00:51go up.
00:53The one question people keep insisting that I answer and I don't like to, they keep wanting
00:57me to give away the technology behind this but well since you've been so persistent and
01:02asked me and asked me I guess I'll give you the answer.
01:05It's magic.
01:06Oh, okay.
01:07You know in any good story you've got the good guy and the bad guy, the theater people
01:13call the protagonist and the antagonist.
01:16Okay well water is the protagonist, obviously water is the source of life.
01:21In that sense fire is the antagonist.
01:23So we thought we'd bring them together, not to fight.
01:25When you see them here they're playing together.
01:28Well what happens is and our thought was let's call this place something beyond what's real.
01:35I mean the expo is fantastic, this is the greatest expo ever and there's so much exciting
01:41technology and advancements and everything that's done.
01:45But I think all of us have a little craving in ourselves for something that's maybe a
01:50little bit magic, maybe not quite founded in the hard things of the world that we touch.
01:56And so we wanted to explore that and thought well what if we could take the most predictable
02:01thing in the world, gravity, where it brings water down and reverse it.
02:05And when you come here at night sometimes you'll see these waves come crashing down.
02:10Far away down they'll stop, look around a bit and go racing right back to the top.
02:15You have to watch for it but you will see it.
02:17We've been working on this project since I think it was 2018, so that's about four
02:21years with the fantastic expo committee and of course Her Excellency Reem Al-Hashimi.
02:28And that's how long it's taken, a little bit of COVID pause in there you know but like
02:32the rest of the expo we're I think a statement to the fact that even adversity can be overcome
02:38when the objective is something wonderful.
02:40One of the things that really excited me about this project was the three goals of the expo.
02:46Sustainability, very important, mobility and of course opportunity.
02:51I think we have them all three here in our feature.
02:54I mean sustainability, we're working with recycled water, clean, pure, crystalline water
03:00that we use over and over again.
03:02And then fire, this is not ordinary fire.
03:05There's no carbon here being added to the atmosphere because we're burning hydrogen
03:10as our fuel.
03:11You know what you get when you burn hydrogen?
03:13You get water.
03:14So we're actually creating water from the fire here.
03:17So that's pretty great.
03:18How is that for sustainability?
03:20Mobility, when you think of mobility that is from the very beginnings of civilization,
03:25how did people get around?
03:27It was mostly on water, little boats and rivers and streams and then big lakes and then of
03:34course the oceans.
03:35Well here we're using water in its grandest way to see how it moves and celebrate that.
03:40And then opportunity, well that's when you bring together the forces of nature and the
03:45beauty of nature and the hand and the mind of man to create something new.
03:49I mean that's the widest opportunity door I can think of to open.
03:52The amount of water that's used in this feature is just the amount that evaporates and is
03:59used to wash the filters.
04:00All of it that you actually see falling is just recycled over and over and over again.
04:05So what we've created, you hear this music in the background.
04:08This is an original score written by one of the greatest, in my opinion the greatest
04:14living composer of modern music, Ramin Djawadi.
04:19If you're a fan of Game of Thrones or Westworld or Iron Man or any of those great films, Ramin
04:25Djawadi wrote the music for that.
04:27He wrote this music for this, but nothing else has ever been heard before.
04:33And so this music, which is called Surreal, as is our fountain, and our performances here
04:38will continue throughout the entire duration of the expo.
04:43Actually we're working on a number of other exciting projects, which I'm sworn to secrecy
04:47about, but they're sort of in the general area here, so you'll all be able to go see
04:50them.
04:51Oh, in Dubai?
04:52Well, in the area.
04:53In the area?
04:54Including some in Dubai, yes.