Last week I formed my idea about how the installation would occupy the space.  I had an idea of it being a double-sided screen which would flow towards the windows.  After evaluating the site and the logistics of hanging the piece, it has become a more rigid idea which more closely fits with the existing geometries of the space.

[Logistics:

The piece would hang from string wrapped over the truss at two locations, one 6′ from the south wall and the other at the wall.  To make these vertical connections more taught, they will be attached the desk located directly below.  The main vertical strings would be comprised of string and circular plastic loops, strung together, to create attachment points for horizontal strings to be strung. These horizontal strings would support small pieces of crescent board which, like a tapestry, would form a screen.]

Once I created the rough boundary of the piece, I began to wonder what would be the ‘pattern’ on the surface.  It seemed curious as to why I jumped to the conclusion that it would be a pattern and that it would be applied across the surface maybe in a regular order or in a gradient.  It might be the Erwin Hauer influence, or the general architectural zeitgeist that an interesting design should be or could be repeated indefinitely and stretched across an un-specifically sized or shaped surface.

While perhaps valid in some architectural contexts, this thinking seemed trite and inappropriate for the specific location and I tried to see, instead of creating a shape and then repeating that shape until space was requisitely filled, how could I design a screen that was guided in form by the introduction of color?  Thinking of the rectilinear geometry of the space, I created a flat grid and by cutting and moving one square could then manipulate the shape of the plane and introduce color.

Bounced color then guides the form and the shape can be created organically, but not randomly.  My intention would be to guide the form, color, and shadow of the screens through one simple process of cutting along the grid.  I’ve always been fascinated with Sol Lewitt’s ideas of space definition and utilization of ordering systems to generate new forms.  These cut pieces would be held into form by being tied onto the grid through tension, something like Spencer Finch’s piece at MASS Moca.

The idea would be that the exterior would glow from bounced color and inside the two planes and due to the highly reflective nature of the material, colored light would be reflected on the space above below and to the sides of the screens.  Due to the patterned surface, I was hoping light would catch in many directions, something like the phenomena that occurs underneath Herzog and Demeuron’s Caixa Forum.  A refracted light sandwich.  I’ve been having trouble finding the right material to do this, though.  I went to TAP plastics, art supply stores, and department stores looking for materials but I tend to find either highly reflective double-sided materials or transparent films.  The material I’m using for tests is just white crescent board with spray paint on one side, but I haven’t been able to achieve a gloss that is reflective enough.  I might have to make a hybrid material myself, which wouldn’t be very clean.  My other idea is that I scrap this bounced color idea all together, since it’s been a hassle from the beginning, and start over.  Nancy recommended that I do something like the MIT chapel installation.

I had been vaguely entertaining the idea of a kinetic component to the installation, due to its location in the kitchen area and the tendency for the MAX to rumble by and for people in the space to create air movement.  Nancy pointed out the draft from the windows present at my installation location and the possibility to utilize this existing energy in my screen.  When I think of kinetic sculpture I tend to jump to Alexander Calder.  I think a more relevant artist is Jean Tinguely, whose museum I visited in Basel.  I found some interesting ideas of his, including one involving plexiglas to make a screen.

Hauer, Erwin. Erwin Hauer: Continua–architectural Screen Walls. New York: Princeton Architectural, 2004. Print.

Erwin Hauer is a sculptor whose work entertains a notion of complicated simplicity.  This book focuses on his sculpted architectural screens and his ability to repeat a single pattern block to create striking compositions.

“Herzog & De Meuron – CaixaForum Madrid :: Arcspace.com.” Arcspace. Web. 05 May 2011. <http://www.arcspace.com/architects/herzog_meuron/caixa/caixa.html>.

This website details the Caixa Forum in Madrid.  A mix of old and new structures, the Caixa Forum, designed by Herzog & DeMeuron is a museum space which bridges the old and new of design in Madrid.

Joselit, David. American Art since 1945. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. Print.

This book attempts to address all major art movements in America since 1945.  By highlighting key players in these movements, this book is a major reference for understanding artists’ influences in the 20th century and how artists and different movements evolve and inspire new work.  By placing modern and contemporary art on a timeline, it is possible to more completely understand the significance of individual work within 20th century American art.

“Museum Tinguely.” Museum Tinguely. Web. 05 May 2011. <http://www.tinguely.ch/en.html>.

This is the website for the Tinguely museum in Basel, Switzerland.  Jean Tinguely was a Basel-based kinetic sculptor whose work dates from 1954-1991.  The website highlights his more prominent works and builds a timeline of succession of his diverse ideas for kinetic sculpture.

Spencer Finch. Web. 05 May 2011. <http://www.spencerfinch.com/>.

Spencer Finch is a visual artist whose work focuses on light effects.  His work is highly experiential and involves what he terms invoking the ever-present ‘invisible world.’

http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=28

Location
From where shall the project begin and to where shall it end?  The original project brief focused on the unresolved quality of space division between studio and kitchen.  The ambiguity of this barrier, while real, as a physical desk marks the line, calls attention to the undesigned nature of this last bay and seems to be a forgotten space.  This is even more noticeable as the other studio bays are clearly demarcated by 4′ white half walls.  The placement of a messy 30″ desktop in the crisp white datum line in an unintended misfortune.   The goal of this project is not to resolve this issue of a dropped datum, but to create a resolution of this line where it terminates on the south wall.

Pattern/Surface

As there is a link which needs to be addressed between what is displayed and how it is displayed (Newhouse, 9), the location of the piece is important as to focus the qualities desired for pattern and surface.  Drawing from the existing geometry, I have the intersection of several rectilinear planes: the half-height partition wall, the 2′ concrete column present in the exterior wall, and the 4×3 grid of  the two black metal window frames.  As Kengo Kuma discusses the reality of architectural decoration, “pattern…explains and strengthens the structure of the space” (Abruzzo, 42).  From these geometries, I can derive a resolving pattern.

In parti, the piece will continue the datum of the half wall, but reversed, flowing towards the ceiling instead of the floor.  I imagine it flowing upwards to keep the visual connection at standing height above the 4′ wall, while making it obvious that it is beginning and tied to the datum line.  From there, the design of the pattern must create a flow betwene this datum and the surface of the window. In searching for the correct pattern of the installation’s pieces, I am consulting not only Kengo Kuma’s prescription that decoration enhance structure, but also ideas from many camps, including inspiration from the work of Theo van Doesburg.  In his patterns, he composes colors and forms which create a sense of movement while viewed and existing statically (Coles, 88).

Light Qualities/Phenomena

This installation looks to synthesize the properties of designing an installation for a static existing interior condition with the modulating exterior condition of light and weather changes.  As Jacci Den Hartog is able to accomplish evoking “the power and beauty of nature rather than re-creating it with exactitute” (Lombino, 34), I hope that my light sculpture will create references to the natural world without literally representing it, and instead creating new form.

As in Dan Flavin’s untitled (to the “innovator” of Wheeling Peachblow) (Bell, 164), the object of the installation will be to utilize existing architectural conditions to create new spatial conditions through the medium of light.  Flavin’s work accomplished the erasure of the wall’s corner through direct focus of florescent light at two angles.  As it currently exists, the column straddling the dividing line of kitchen and studio creates a heavy composition within the space, obstructing light passage and dividing window space.  The installation will focus on lightening the column and refracting light to decrease this heaviness and instead focus on the other architectural elements which lighten the space such as the 4′ walls and the windows.  The aim of this installation will be creating a new ’subtractive barrier’ which lightens and combines the two spaces over an additive approach which might might increase the heaviness of the space.

Abruzzo, Emily, and Jonathan D. Solomon. Decoration. New York: 306090, 2006. Print.This collection of articles explores the nature of decoration within architectural design.  The authors have chosen interviews and academic papers which discuss divergent opinions on the nature of decoration in contemporary context.

Over the past few days I’ve been wondering how to design something visually stimulating for the kitchen even on these rainy Portland days.  I had thoughts of reflective surfaces hung from the ceiling almost like white raindrops with a reflective inner surface that would bounce light and create light movement due to vibrations from the MAX or air movement in the kitchen.  I would like my project to interact with the ceiling somehow..bringing a new sky into the kitchen.

In a quick exercise, I cut a basic shape to see how reflective the color would be onto another surface.  I based this shape on the idea “what if something were growing out of the shape of the window?”

The color was surprisingly reflective even though it was raining and cloudy outside.  I discovered that I had been missing the point – leaving too much open space where I had made the cuts.  I forgot the basic principle of light..it is a wave.  And these waves will try its hardest to get through even the tiniest of cracks.  I don’t need the back of the screen to be open to let light in.  As long as there is a closeby surface to reflect onto, it will reflect the color.  I made a few more pieces to test out a pattern of this design.  It is a very rudimentary test , but helps me understand the direction I need to go.

I don’t want a totally solid screen blocking out the view of the window, but it is helpful to see that even at an angle I can still seem to get bounced color.  this means this application might work suspended from the ceiling.  I want to try larger panels and maybe different reflectivities…maybe a more open framework..maybe I will revert to the raindrop idea.