At the Serpentine Gallery in London last week, Pavilion, the commissioned architectural sculpture was unveiled amid a flurry of reviews and interviews. Sou Fujimoto, the architect who accepted the commission, talked about the work as a cloud, and others, picking up on it, equated it to the computing Cloud, hovering over us gently, surreptitiously.
The environment--it's too big to be a sculpture and calling it a construction would be unfair, is made up of hundreds of latices welded carefully together to create an elegant grid. It was built in Japan and England and eased by crane to its place in the Serpentine's front yard where it is on exhibit until September. Tables and chairs add a café effect (which I don't think is at all necessary) and, to adapt it to the sometimes rainy British weather, transparent discs were placed over certain parts of it to stop rain from soaking the ground. Some cloud. I would have left it alone. Rain falls from clouds after all, right?
Conspicuously absent from the reviews is the sound and light element, developed by United Visual Artists, UVA, a London-based art, design and fabrication company that got its start making sets for musical performances and now accepts commissions to create public art installations.
Turns out Mr. Fujimoto's Pavilion at night glows with flashes of light and the sounds of small electrical explosions akin to bursts of lightning. In UVA's description:
"As an event, UVA transformed Sou Fujimoto's summer pavilion bringing the cloud-like structure to life with an electrical storm. Their performative installation aims to make the architecture "breathe", awakening a character and energy, seemingly from within. For this piece UVS reference their past works which, similar to Fujimoto's, rely on geometric foundations and interests".
OK, but I don't get what the criteria for the energy release, and information has thus far been absent. News outlets referred it as "The Summer Party", however it's hasn't been noted if the light and sound show was a one-time event or whether it will continue for the duration of the exhibition.
UVA, speaking of itself in the plural, touches upon their past work, an LED cube installed in Brooklyn Bridge Park a few years ago. The building shells that were once the tobacco warehouses on the banks of the East River housed a giant cube made up of computer-driven illuminated LED panels set to the compositions of sound artist Scanner (Robin Rimbaud). In it, the computer programmed the modulating light and sound. Unlike Fujimoto's carefully considered structure at the Serpentine, Origin is a latticed cube in various colors, its shape constantly transformed by the fluctuating lights.
Not sure if either of the two pieces is interactive. True, the spectators are engaged, however I don't see how the viewers influence the operation--the expression, if you will, of that engagement. Comments welcome.
Further reading:
http://www.archdaily.com/388267/fujimoto-s-serpentine-pavilion-through-the-lens-of-james-aiken/
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2013/02/sou_fujimoto_to_design_serpentine_gallery_pavilion_2013.html
Conspicuously absent from the reviews is the sound and light element, developed by United Visual Artists, UVA, a London-based art, design and fabrication company that got its start making sets for musical performances and now accepts commissions to create public art installations.
Turns out Mr. Fujimoto's Pavilion at night glows with flashes of light and the sounds of small electrical explosions akin to bursts of lightning. In UVA's description:
"As an event, UVA transformed Sou Fujimoto's summer pavilion bringing the cloud-like structure to life with an electrical storm. Their performative installation aims to make the architecture "breathe", awakening a character and energy, seemingly from within. For this piece UVS reference their past works which, similar to Fujimoto's, rely on geometric foundations and interests".
OK, but I don't get what the criteria for the energy release, and information has thus far been absent. News outlets referred it as "The Summer Party", however it's hasn't been noted if the light and sound show was a one-time event or whether it will continue for the duration of the exhibition.
UVA, speaking of itself in the plural, touches upon their past work, an LED cube installed in Brooklyn Bridge Park a few years ago. The building shells that were once the tobacco warehouses on the banks of the East River housed a giant cube made up of computer-driven illuminated LED panels set to the compositions of sound artist Scanner (Robin Rimbaud). In it, the computer programmed the modulating light and sound. Unlike Fujimoto's carefully considered structure at the Serpentine, Origin is a latticed cube in various colors, its shape constantly transformed by the fluctuating lights.
Not sure if either of the two pieces is interactive. True, the spectators are engaged, however I don't see how the viewers influence the operation--the expression, if you will, of that engagement. Comments welcome.
Further reading:
http://www.archdaily.com/388267/fujimoto-s-serpentine-pavilion-through-the-lens-of-james-aiken/
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2013/02/sou_fujimoto_to_design_serpentine_gallery_pavilion_2013.html
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