2751kilometers / 2621grams

source: thecreatorsprojectvice

Artists Chris Klapper and Patrick Gallagher have turned the data from a three month trek across Spain into a 225sq ft sculpted infograph mandala, handcrafted from marble and granite. The piece, called 2751 kilometers/2621 grams, is the first in a new series called Dataatadata, which explores the aesthetics of raw information.

Using info recorded as they journeyed through Spain, the work references the spiritual nature of this type of art, but combines it with the modern phenomenon of GPS tracking and metadata. Turning their adventure into a mandala seemed like the perfect way to capture the enduring (in memory) yet fleeting (in form) nature of the experience.

2751 kilometers/2621 grams

The pair explain what the mandala represents:

Expressed with GPS coordinates and binary code, it is a visual map comprised of days, regions, experiential categories and specific locations. The concept of this project combines the poetic expression of a mandala with data mapping. Drawing connections between the information while highlighting the intense effort and beauty of the journey.

The project took 30 days to make (with the artists working 10-12 hours each day), which included compiling the data and conceptualizing the piece as well as making it. “It was an experience unquantifiable by images and stories alone. The journey itself was extraordinarily powerful, beautiful and difficult to say the least,” Klapper notes.

2751 kilometers/2621 grams

The artwork highlights their journey along the north coast of Spain through the Galician mountains, then down to the Andalusia region and the Strait of Gibraltar, before heading northwards and ending in the village of Belalcazar, where they created the mandala in the grounds of a 15th century monastery, before destroying it by sweeping it away.

“We chose data mapping to express this experience in an unconventional way,” explains Klapper. “One of the concepts of a mandala is a mediation on impermanence. The immense effort and detail that goes into its creation only to be destroyed shortly there after is a very powerful concept. We felt it is one that resonates with everybody. It speaks of life, experiences and the impermanence of memory.”
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source: chrisklapper

I see the world and all that exists in it as one. Everything connects, yet stands apart. As an installation artist, I study how things are linked together: the universe, the stars, DNA, molecules, cells, plants and animals, the air we breathe, life and death, everything. It’s all connected.

The recurring theme in my work is the cycle of life and the interrelationship of all things to each other in the universe. My art derives from objects that I find and cast from a variety of materials to form Installations. As I work connecting each element to another, the essence of the individual pieces are changed and a new creation is born — my personal adaptation and expansion of the “readymade”.

I am both amazed by life and confounded by death. Fascinated by the energy of creativity. In an effort to work freely, I enter my studio with an idea and allow my unconscious mind and the nature of the materials to come together to create without constraint.