2×5 in Brown University, Rhode Island by realities:united

Article source: realities:united

COMPLETION OF THE KINETIC BUILDING-SITE ART INSTALLATION »2X5« BY THE ARTISTS GROUP REALITIES:UNITED AT THE GRANOFF CENTER FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS AT BROWN UNIVERSITY IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, USA

‘2×5’ is a permanent kinetic light installation for the new “Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts” by the architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The art installation has been realized for Brown University in the framework of a building-site art competition with international invitations. It will be dedicated on April 3rd 2012.

Images Courtesy realities:united

• Architect: realities:united
• Name of Project: 2×5
• Location: Brown University, Rhode Island, USA
• Credits of All imags: ©2012 by realities:united, Berlin

2×5 is a time-based work and makes use of an established commercial technical format known from the advertising industry: the installation consists of two mechanical “poster scrollers” in a special format. The identically constructed machines are each ca. 4.4m tall and 1.8m wide. Motor-driven winding cores are mounted above and below in the casings. Each pair of winding cores has 5 abutting, full-surface monochromatic colored prints on textile stretched between them that can be scrolled to appear behind a glass surface, illuminated from behind.

The behavior of the two apparatuses is coordinated through a shared control mechanism. Usually, both of the two poster scrollers shows the same color surface, or at least each apparatus shows one full color surface. Occasionally, however, the two canvases stop in the half- or quarter-position, so that an apparatus shows two colors at the same time. Also the intensity of the backlighting can be adjusted in accordance with the stopping positions of the color surfaces.

Images Courtesy realities:united

The installation is controlled via a series of algorithms that influence the speed and synchronicity of the behavior of the two scrollers, the color (or color combination) appearing on each scroller, and the intensity of the backlighting.

The complexity of the installation’s behavior is temporally coupled to the progress of the university’s year. At the beginning of the academic year, the machines tend to both show the same color equally intensely backlit, and the changes are usually fundamental, i.e., from one color entirely to another.

In the course of the year, the probability increases that the two machines will show behavior independent of each other. Then the spatial experience is shaped by up to four different colors of differing intensities at once.

With two to four changes per day the frequency of the change is so low that visitors initially experience the installation mostly as static in the respective configuration. The users of the building – mostly students or University staff – can only perceive the changes of the color code, and especially the creeping erosion of the installation’s behavior pattern after a longer period.

Wasn’t there something else yesterday?

Images Courtesy realities:united

realities:united – Jan Edler & Tim Edler

Since 1997 the brothers Jan Edler and Tim Edler work together on projects dealing with the intersection of space, information and communication. In 2000 – they found „realities:united“ as a „studio for art and architecture“. Since this label served the duo as the basis for the realization of their art- and hybrid installations at an architectural and/or urban scale. Within that scope the brother’s focus of interest lies in the development of situation based operation strategies in-between art, architecture and technological research.

Pieces by the brothers are both included in permanent museum collections like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, or Museum Abteiberg in Moenchengladbach, as well as in private collections like the “Schuermann Collection” -one of the most important private collection of “young art” in Germany- and the collection of the Photographer Mario Testino in Great Britain.

The brothers’ installations have been honored with numerous awards, for instance the prestigious “Kunstpreis Berlin 2009” (Art Prize Berlin, an award in the category architecture) by the Academy of the Arts Berlin, the Hans Schaefers Award by the German Architects Association in Berlin, or the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction 2011 for Europe in gold.

The Edlers have been exhibited at several international exhibitions including the Venice Biannual (2002, 2006, 2008), the Art Museum Stuttgart, the Museum Abteiberg in Moenchengladbach, the MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, as well as the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel.

Images Courtesy realities:united

Tags: Brown University, Rhode Island

Category: Installation

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