Tensegrity Sphere

Sixty-Strut Tensegrity Sphere by Buckminster Fuller is both a feat of engineering and an object of beauty. Wire individually snakes through sixty stainless steel tubes, suspending them in a icosahedral (20 face) form. Tensional integrity, or tensegrity – a term coined by Fuller – is a structural-relationship principle.

Needle Tower
“Inspired by architect Buckminster Fuller’s interest in the geometry of structure, Snelson’s experiments led to a prototype for a “floating compression structure.” Fuller subsequently credited Snelson with having invented a new structural principle which the architect named tensegrity, a contraction of the words tension and integrity.
These investigations into the physical properties of structure became more fully realized as an art form beginning in the 1950s. Snelson created sculptures consisting of tubes and cables. Cylinders of steel seemingly dance through space in defiance of gravity, yet it is the structural competition between tension and compression which underlies their construction. Snelson finds beauty in bringing these forces of nature into balance: the rigid compression tubes pushing outward, the flexible tension cables pulling inward. His sculptures would maintain their structural integrity beyond gravity, in the vacuum of outer space.” Joelle Burrows

The Right to Flight

A Londres, l’installation aérienne «The Right to Flight» de l’artiste britannique James Bridle explore la notion de surveillance depuis les airs et revient sur les utopies dévoyées des premiers aérostats.
Dans le ciel limpide de Londres flotte depuis le mois de juin un étrange ballon noir. Localisé dans le quartier populaire de Peckham, dans le sud de la ville, il est arrimé au niveau supérieur d’un parking désaffecté, vaisseau brutaliste dont les deux derniers étages hébergent depuis huit ans Bold Tendencies, un projet artistique estival, ainsi qu’un bar de plein air très couru avec une vue stupéfiante sur la skyline londonienne.Connu pour ses projets sur les drones ou son blog de recherche The New Aesthetic, James Bridle, né en 1980, a aussi posé sur le toit du parking une station de recherche expérimentale explorant l’histoire des aérostats, via des ateliers, des conférences et projections. Constituée de trois modules circulaires, fabriqués à partir de silos de grains lestés par des sacs de sable, l’architecture évoque tout à la fois les hangars des compagnies aériennes et la maison en kit Dymaxion de Buckminster Füller

AVA_V2 / Particle Physics_Scientific_Installation
Ava; is the surface-volume shape coefficient. The main inspiration comes from monumental experimentations which focused on particle physics. AVA’s design originate from the Buckminster Fuller’s iconic dome structure. It has 360 traceable area from the exterior surface of the dome. Cosmic rays reinterpreted within the concept of AVA and the first version of the performance screened at Paris. AVA is a Commisioned Artwork and designed as a portable installation which can be transportable and positionable at any place.

РАФАЭЛЬ ЛОЗАНО-ХЕММЕР
拉斐尔·洛萨诺 – 亨默
ラファエル·ロサノ=ヘメル
라파엘 로자노
רפאל לוזאנו, המר
Open Air
Depending on atmospheric conditions, Open Air could be seen up to 10 miles away from the Parkway each evening from 8 to 11 p.m. The Project Information Center at Eakins Oval was equipped with app download, free mobile loan stations and seating areas for watching the lights and listening to the messages. There was also be an Information Outpost located at Sister Cities Park (18th Street and Logan Square).The Open Air voice archive also features selected “Voices of Philly,” recorded messages from distinct individuals both past and present who have inspired and influenced the flavor of Philadelphia. “Voices of Philly” messages are accessible on this website and were played at various times throughout the project. Content for “Voices of Philly” was collected by project partner WHYY executive producer Elisabeth Perez-Luna and includes David Lynch, Sonia Sanchez, Sun Ra, Louis Kahn, M. Night Shyamalan, Tina Fey, ?uestlove, Marcel Duchamp, Buckminster Fuller, Jimmy Heath, Santigold, Maurice Sendak, Patti LaBelle and many more.

Entropia
Entropia est une performance audio-visuel initiée par le travail de Fraction sur la spatialisation sonore 3D et rejoint par les artistes LP St Arnault, Nature Graphique et la création ex nihilo afin d’explorer une représentation esthétique d’un système entropique, en rendant hommage au travail de l’architecte Richard Buckminster Fuller. L’oeuvre basée sur une sphère geodesique  audioréactive interragit en permancen avec les projection de visuels immersifs et le son.

Re-projection: Hoosac

Influenced by the utopian projects — and notable failures — of innovative artists and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, Frederick Kiesler, and Charles Eames, Tobias Putrih likens his works to experiments, or design prototypes. His use of cheap materials, including egg crates, cardboard, and plywood signify both a sense of potential and impending collapse. Many of the artist’s works reference the architecture and spectacle of the cinema: a space suspended between fantasy and reality, image and environment. With Re-projection: Hoosac Putrih distills the cinema to its most basic element: fishing line stretched across the gallery mimics the conical trajectory of a beam of light. A spotlight hits the strands of monofilament which in turn become a screen, reflecting an image in illuminated dots. Inspired by the Hoosac Tunnel just east of North Adams — a storied, engineering marvel that draws ghost-hunters to the area — Putrih’s tunnel is, likewise, both real and a representation, an optical trick that invites both wonder and investigation.

The Blur Building (an architecture of atmosphere)
The Blur Building is a media pavilion for Swiss EXPO 2002 at the base of Lake Neuchatel in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland.From piles in the water, a tensegrity system of rectilinear struts and diagonal rods cantilevers out over the lake. Ramps and walkways weave through the tensegrity system, some of them providing a counterweight for the structure. The form is based on the work of Buckminster Fuller.The pavilion is made of filtered lake water shot as a fine mist through 13,000 fog nozzles creating an artificial cloud that measures 300 feet wide by 200 feet deep by 65 feet high. A built-in weather station controls fog output in response to shifting climatic conditions such as temperature, humidity, wind direction, and wind speed.The public can approach Blur via a ramped bridge. The 400 foot long ramp deposits visitors at the center of the fog mass onto a large open-air platform where movement is unregulated. Visual and acoustical references are erased along the journey toward the fog leaving only an optical “white-out” and the “white-noise” of pulsing water nozzles. Prior to entering the cloud, each visitor responds to a questionnaire/character profile and receives a “braincoat” (smart raincoat). The coat is used as protection from the wet environment and storage of the personality data for communication with the cloud’s computer network. Using tracking and location technologies, each visitor’s position can be identified and their character profiles compared to any other visitor.In the Glass Box, a space surrounded by glass on six sides, visitors experience a “sense of physical suspension only heightened by an occasional opening in the fog.” As visitors pass one another, their coats compare profiles and change color indicating the degree of attraction or repulsion, much like an involuntary blush – red for affinity, green for antipathy. The system allows interaction among 400 visitors at any time.Visitors can climb another level to the Angel Bar at the summit. The final ascent resembles the sensation of flight as one pierces through the cloud layer to the open sky. Here, visitors relax, take in the view, and choose from a large selection of commercial waters, municipal waters from world capitals, and glacial waters. At night, the fog will function as a dynamic and thick video screen.