An installation that turns Coca-Cola into water is showing soda in a different light.

 

When designer Helmut Smits realized that it takes between 6-9 liters of clean drinking water to produce 1 liter of Coca-Cola, he decided to invent a contraption to reverse the process.

 

"The Real Thing" (an old Coke advertising slogan) reverses the distillery process by boiling the soda and filtering the water from it. It was designed in collaboration with Martien Würdemann and the Synthetic Organic Chemistry Group at the University of Amsterdam.

 

"When I looked at Coca-Cola that way, I saw dirty brown water, so it was only logical to filter it back into clean drinking water, just as we do with all our waste water," Smits explains.

 

"When you think about the fact that in some parts of the world people don't have access to clean drinking water, but you can buy a bottle of Coke there."

 

Smits hopes the installation, which is currently on display at the Van Abbesmuseum, will make people laugh but also question the world around us and our consumer habits.

 

"The Real Thing" will be on display at the Van Abbemuseum through November 9.

 

 

PHOTO: "The Real Thing" by Helmut Smits.