i created these sculptures for re:entry, envelope soundsystem’s inaugural event hosted before pride weekend.
i wanted to acknowledge mylar’s properties as a fascinating and novel material (the event had a future-past, space-age theme), and also emphasize the resultant sculptures’ interaction with light. i wanted the sculptures to show passive movement so that they captured the viewer’s attention, but not too forcibly. to achieve this low-grav subtle movement, i built alexander-caulderesque mobiles. i constructed each piece and balanced each arm incrementally.
i found that large surfaces (basically, avoiding any nodes as much as possible and retaining a 3d curvature) allowed light to be reflected most noticeably, and that the light interacting with the mylar directly was less interesting than the reflections the mylar-scattered light cast on the adjacent walls. i called them “disco-ball tech” for this reason.
technical construction
- treatment of surfaces: it was necessary to wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on the mylar. i used staples instead of tape to form the pieces since tape deformed the local surface unpleasantly and also was difficult to work with (would get caught too easily on other surfaces). i found an attitude of “touch each piece as little as possible” to be most helpful to achieve the result i wanted.
- mounting: i poked a hole and added a string with a blocker to hang each sculpture.
- balancing: given two pieces, each hanging from the end of a long rod (either bamboo or ikebana wire), i then found the location for the center of balance in that rod. that entire piece then operated as a “piece” for another rod.
