Paper Armada

I like the simplicity of this idea: Put newspapers on a grid of tables in a room, all facing the same direction.  Then install box fans along one side of the grid to lift a page of each paper like a sail, as in the picture above.  The tables or fans might have to be staggered so papers in front don't block ones in back.

Though somebody would have to turn on the fans and make sure the pages lifted-off each day it was displayed, there's not much to go wrong once it's set up.  And the fans could provide some relief in the summertime, which is threatening to crank up here.

The Test

I taped a few sheets of newspaper to the floor and got the sails to stay open for the duration of a two-minute movie I made.  The photos here are taken from it (I dimmed the light over the course of the movie, ending below).

The fan is on the floor, pointing from the same angle as the camera, instead of nearly head-on as I'd planned.  I'm not sure if the holes I poked in the pocket of each sail did any good.

There are plenty of ways to improve this.  I'd try stronger paper (not newspaper), that could scale up in size, and smaller fans (mine, even on low, is too powerful), maybe one per sail for better control.

From my experience with temperamental pieces, this is a good candidate for video: get it stable enough to work really well for a few hours and record it.  Then display the video instead of the piece itself.