Project description:

This is a kinetic figurative sculpture composed from vines, fabrics and masks, and is suspended beneath a large bamboo tetrahedron, (or another solid anchor). The sculpture spins really quickly and is illuminated by precisely timed lights of different colors that are just out of sync with the speed of motor. This creates a beautiful illusion that the faces and its geometries of vines and helices around it are spinning very slowly. The sculpture appears to multiply and separate into different colors each with their own embodiment, so that the different colored faces amazingly appear to come out of and melt into one another at varying speeds. I can adjust the way the sculpture looks in a variety of ways to control its color palate, the number of faces that appear, and even how much they seem to melt through space. The geometries of the fabrics and vines create a beautiful symmetry of rotating and fluttering helices that form an ethereal dancing figure who rises into the height of the pyramid.

Showings

Since its conception in the summer of 2012 its installation has been professionally featured art events and festivals and was sponsored to be an entrance piece for Alex Grey's Art Dome at Burning Man, 2012 in Nevada.

· Visionary Arts Fair, GA, 2012
· Burning Man, NV, 2012
· Gnarnia, NC, 2012
· Alchemy, GA, 2012

Technical Description

The project utilizes a custom designed circuit built by the artist. At its brain is PIC microprocessor that is coded in C. Various knobs and sliders adjust the strobe rates and pulse widths of the various colors of light, (red, green, blue and ultra-violet) and thus control the expression of the piece. By controlling the strobe rates the faces and geometries can appear singular or many, and the amount that it is offset from the motor speed controls how the speed and in what direction the colored representations of the sculpture appear to move. Also by controlling the pulse widths of the lights, the crispness or blurriness can be changed to make some really interesting effects, (see video).

Artist Statement:

There are many metaphors and reflections I have found in this piece, however I feel more compelled to express why I feel this piece is truly profound. Every time I install this sculpture it stops people in their tracks and shakes them out of their normal senses. It is so interesting for me to quietly hang out near the piece and listen to peoples reactions and discussions of fascination, appreciation, curiosity or even terror when they approach. (My favorite reaction was when a mime prostrated before it and started worshiping). It is also fascinating to see how long people stay to experience the piece. Routinely people tell me they sat staring into my sculpture for a half hour or an hour. And I myself have done so on many occasions while building it. I have come to discover that there is something unexpectedly entrancing and indulgent about having your mind tickled and unable to corollate what it sees with its existing concepts of reality. That is where the defining power of this creation lives, not in the particulars of its beauty and aesthetics, but in the experience of integrating a new genus of matter and motion that it offers.

Note on Video Documentation

Because this sculpture utilizes flashes of light that are sometimes hundreds of times faster than a camera's frame rate it is very difficult to record faithfully. However, the video links above do their best to convey the piece. Please see in person for intended experience.