My solo show Extrusion opened at ROM for Kunst og Arkitektur in Oslo last Friday. I’ll be posting some of the pieces here over the next few days.
Prime Hex, 2011. Light installation w/ 12 fluorescent light tubes controlled via DMX using Processing. 300 x 270 cm. Behavior is dictated by prime number relationships, each element having a given time period where the light is on and off in equal measure.
Prime Hex is a variation of “Prime”, a 2010 public commission for Bybanen light rail tunnel, Bergen. It uses Henri David’s Processing library dmxP512 for lighting control.
01:35 | March 15th, 2011 | marius watz | +del.icio.us | +digg | trackback
I’m working on a new 6-panel Grid Distortion piece for my Extrusion show next week, the final size will be 540 x 50 cm. I’ve been revisiting all the previous incarnations of the piece and tweaking the code to elicit new interpretations. Which led me to compile this summary of formal “typologies” that the piece is capable of exhibiting.
Given that the piece is essentially a variation on a very simple attractor simulation it tends to give very obvious (even almost boring) results, and its only through extensive tweaking of parameters and custom rendering styles that I’ve found results I’m excited by. Dave Bollinger made an accurate comment on Flickr that these are perhaps not very “watz-y” images, but its the translation of the form onto wood or metal that somehow completes the form for me.
Grid Distortion expanded: CircGrid on aluminum
Just last week I had some new aluminum pieces made in Berlin with Martin Bauer at Lasern in Berlin that represent a new direction in the series. Loosely titled CircGrid, these expand the same process to radially oriented grids. This might seem like an obvious extension, but the results are actually quite different. The images look less architectural, bringing to mind structures from nature like neurons, blood veins and plant roots etc.
I’m definitely enjoying this new and slightly more chaotic direction, as well as the crisp technical look of the aluminum.
21:11 | March 2nd, 2011 | marius watz | +del.icio.us | +digg | trackback
Hot on the heels of the Interactive Parametrics workshop I’m now in Oslo working on a solo show that will open March 11 at ROM For Art + Architecture (Oslo). Titled “Extrusion”, the show highlights how my practice has bee evolving to dealing with ways of physically communicating code-based processes beyond the default means of the computer screen or projection.
The show will feature a new version of the light installation Prime, this time realized with fluorescent tubes and DMX lighting control. Other elements include a wall drawing made by retracing projected vectors with painters tape (1.2 km of it), as well CNC plotter and laser drawings (Arc Drawings and a new multi-panel Grid Distortion.)
Finally, I’m building a large geometric structure (see above) using my ModelBuilder library in Processing. The forms are designed to be easy to unwrap to 2D without tesselating polygons. I’m outputting cutting templates as PDF files to be used by the CNC routers. This is a new process for me, despite having followed the success people like Martin Fuchs has had with unwrapping polygon meshes. It allows me to work on a fairly large scale (as in 3 x 3 x 1.5 meters), articulating actual structures rather than representations of structures.
All in all it’s a very exciting show to be working on, and I’m grateful to ROM and its director Henrik der Minassian for supporting all this craziness… If you’re in Oslo next weekend I hope to see you there!
16:46 | March 1st, 2011 | marius watz | +del.icio.us | +digg | trackback
