Client: Wexner Center for the Arts
Location: Columbus, OH, United States
Completion date: 2010
Artwork budget: $250,000
Project Team
Artist
Erwin Redl
Other
Chris Buchakjian
Overview
Light Installation with Animated RGB LEDs in Acrylic Tubes
517 x 12 x 65 ft / 158 x 4 x 20 m (length x width x height)
Exhibition “Six Solos” curated by Christopher Bedford
Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
Goals
The Wexner Center's iconic architecture by Peter Eisenman with its gigantic white 3-D frame system on the east wall offers unique possibilities for an artistic intervention. The frame system, a monumental minimalist gesture as a gateway to an otherwise complex postmodern structure completed in 1989 is an almost eerie reminder of Sol LeWitt's famous cube sculpture series which started in the Mid-1960s.
The computer-controlled light installation FETCH employs the facade's frame system to exemplify motion of an object in 3-dimensional space.
A line of light rotates and virtually flies through each of the three top tiers of the Wexner Center's 517 ft long, 12 ft wide and 65 ft high (158 x 4 x 20 m) frame structure.
Each frame captures a single moment of the rotation similar to individual film frames or Muybridge's photography.
By sequentially lighting up the lines, which are placed in different rotational positions within each of the facade's frames, continuous motion is achieved.
Each line of light is made of a weatherproof tube containing RGB lights. A microcontroller manages the brightness levels and colors of each light tube and controls the speed and direction of the animation.
Process
This large-scale project involved a precisely timed collaboration between my studio technicians, the technicians at the Wexner Center for the Arts and an outside rigging company. The on-site installation team had a very limited time to set up the artwork for the opening of the exhibition on November 9, 2010 for the 21st anniversary gala of the museum. The installation was scheduled to be on display till February 13, 2011 but due to its popularity was exhibited for an additional nine months.