Me(dium)

Collaborative Art Residency and Multimedia Installation

Objective:

Get keys to an industrial artist loft space in SOMA and spend 6 intensive weeks collaborating on a large scale installation with 5 Bay Area artists.

Challenge:

Find meaningful intersections between our creative visions, use of material, and approach to art-making to create a large-scale, mixed media installation together.

Defining the Project

Sketching Ideas

Brainstorming and sketching, individually and as a group, led to some interesting and unexpected directions as the framework of the project took shape. Sandblasting geometric shapes onto clear glass domes emerged as possible non-traditional projection screens.

Exploration and Experimentation

Collaborating with new media artist, Reza Ali, who writes custom software that generates reactive visuals and light patterns opened the door to thinking about glass in entirely new ways. Thematically, attraction, repulsion, and tension emerged as points of interest as we explored the intersection between our media.

**Creating the Layout with Projections**

3D Sketching and Making Prototypes

The contrast between opaque and transparent, line and plane, and vertical and horizontal emerged as thematic points of interest during the physical making of the frosted domes. Also, keeping the hanging mechanisms invisible, while suspending the glass in front of the 2D piece, arose an engineering challenge.

Our Collaborative Multimedia Installation

My Individual Piece

Golden Bean Stalk

Simultaneously, I was designing and creating an independent installation in another area within the space. For this piece I drew inspiration from the reflectivity and seductive quality of the metal elements in our group piece. I was sparked by the tension that the suspended glass domes had produced and wanted to take it a couple steps further by suspending a cluster of 60 fragile bulbs from the highest ceiling drop.