Джон Грейд
ジョングレード

capacitor

source: beautifuldecay

John Grade’s Capacitor is a site-specific installation which reacts to the climate of the site it inhabits. Located within the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, this enormous coil is roughly 40′ x 20′ x 20′ and slowly reacts to the changing wind directions and temperatures of the outside environment. Physically behaving according to statistics collected outside the institution, a mechanized controller within the installation powers the enormous coil’s shape. According to Grade, “the whole of the sculpture will appear to be very slowly breathing”. Capacitor also changes the brightness of the lights within the construct, giving an entire reaction to outside elements.
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source: cynthia-reeves

John Grade uses his conceptually and visually compelling sculptures as vessels to explore the cycles of the natural world. Often, the artist creates these works while envisioning their degradation through the impact of the elements. Grade’s sculptures are built from a combination of traditional materials like wood, resin and clay paired with novel polymers like corn and potato based resins and binderless paper castings. His sculptures are often immersed for extended periods of time in tidal bays, the high desert, or snow-fields. Their slow decay is charted and documented via drawings, photographs, video and, ultimately, the transformed materials. Inspired by the erosion of the natural landscape, Grade hands over control of his art to this inevitable decomposition – a process that Grade describes as “an interesting conversation” between the landscape and the sculpture.

Capacitor, the newest work from Grade’s studio, is being unveiled at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin on April 16. Created with perforated fabric skins stretched over mechanically fastened wood frames, the sculpture mimics the soft movement of an oceanic organism. Its cell-like components are linked to weather patterns through sensors installed on the Center’s roof. As information about wind speed and air temperature are communicated to Capacitor, temperature changes dim or brighten the lights; shifting winds contract or expand the entire sculptural form, which opens and closes like a blooming flower. Grade’s team calculated statistical means based on local weather patterns over the past one hundred years and keyed the information into a control panel. Variance from recorded wind and temperature patterns determines how bright the sculpture will glow, and the degree to which the sculpture will open. The artist states, “The whole of the sculpture will appear to be very slowly breathing.”

Capacitor’s forms are inspired by coccolithophore, a one-celled marine plant that lives in the upper layers of the ocean. These photosynthesizing organisms are environmentally significant because they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus helping to cool the planet. Each fluted shape in the sculpture represents an individual organism; each cluster communicates specific information, as a visual manifestation of the weather patterns outside the museum walls.

Grade does not simply mimic shapes, forms, and textures of the natural world, he strives to decipher its “language.” In giving his work over to the elements —as an offering of sorts— he is inviting nature’s serendipitous information. It is a patient work; sculptures that languish in the elements require the artist to wait months, sometimes years, for a response. With Capacitor, however, the process of disintegration is removed, and the response from nature is immediate – weather made manifest as a captivating and wholly enveloping environment.
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source: ideaslabro

La John Michael Kohler Arts Center din Wisconsin, SUA, se află o sculptură imensă din lemn şi polyester în formă de cochilie, ce este animată de mediul natural din afara clădirii. Capacitor, instalaţia realizată de artistul american John Grade, promovează legătura schimbătoare dintre om şi mediul natural. Incă de la concepere, sculptura cinetică a fost inspirată de comportamentul algelor unicelulare (cocolitofore), care trăiesc în număr foarte mare la suprafaţa oceanului şi ajută la eliminarea dioxidului de carbon din atmosferă.

Structura cu aspect organic porneşte de la un schelet de lemn format din multe conuri, care treptat au fost îmbrăcate într-un material din polyester (tyvek) similar cu cel din care sunt făcute lampioanele IKEA, doar că mult mai greu de rupt. În fiecare con se află câte un bec ce reacţionează la intensitatea luminii de afară, transmisă cu ajutorul senzorilor plasaţi pe acoperişul clădirii. Mai mult, tot pe acoperiş se află şi senzori de mişcare ce înregistrează orice deviaţie de viteză a vântului pentru a stimula structura să se închidă sau deschidă asemeni unei flori. Grade descrie mişcarea sculpturii ca pe o uşoară respiraţie.

Echipa condusă de artist a integrat o serie de informaţii meteorologice locale, adunate de peste 100 de ani, într-un tablou de comandă, pentru a traduce limbajul fenomenolor naturale într-o formă vizuală cât mai dinamică. Vizitatorii pot experimenta sculptura stând întinși în mijlocul ei pentru a-i simţi „respiraţia”, atunci când aceasta este activată de ce se petrece afară.