To Water Is to Be is a kinetic sculpture by Nanno Simonis that allows viewers to experience water as an element that is both controllable and uncontrollable. A technically controlled cycle generates powerful water movements within a glass container that seem to burst through the boundaries of the glass. Balancing precision and unpredictability, the work reflects on ecological fragility and the relationship between humans and nature.

Nanno Simonis’ kinetic sculpture To Water Is to Be reflects the dual nature of water—as an element that is both controllable and uncontrollable, delicate and powerful.
The object consists of a complex technical system made of distilled water, aluminum, glass, PVC rubber, and electronic components (approx. 65 × 65 × 130 cm). Inside a glass container, a centrifugal pump creates a continuous water cycle that builds up the pressure for the water’s movement. Custom-designed control electronics regulate the rhythm and intensity of the flow, enabling a precisely choreographed dynamic. The water crashes forcefully against the glass walls, creating complex, organic patterns.
This control creates the impression that the water is overcoming the boundaries of its enclosure. It appears as though it is breaking out or carrying out a controlled “explosion.” In reality, however, the movement remains technically regulated and precisely composed.

The sculpture thus illustrates the tension between control and uncontrollability: on the one hand, water appears as a resource that can be technically harnessed and directed; on the other, as a force that eludes complete mastery. Within the precisely controlled dynamics, control is not abolished, but rather revealed as a fragile, perpetually precarious condition.
In terms of content, the work reflects on themes such as ecological instability, climate change, and the close intertwining of humanity and nature. It questions the notion that natural processes are fully controllable and points to the fragile balance of systems in which water plays a central role. At the same time, the installation becomes a model in which technological interventions and natural dynamics are inseparably intertwined.
To Water Is to Be combines technical sophistication with a poetry of natural movements and presents water as a fluid, ambivalent principle between order and excess—as a medium that, while malleable, nevertheless possesses its own “will.”