Client: California College of the Arts

Overview

Exuberance. An overabundance of images frozen in stop motion. Pixelation, noise, reverberation, pause. This collective woven moment of transitory impermanence, a massive transparent surface imagined new, redefined and reconfigured as a degraded pulsating and shifting color field. These marks are but fragments of us… The final installation consisted of over 200 printed panels of an adhesive thin film‑like material that were affixed to the outside glass which at it’s highest point is over 25 feet and measures approximately 100 feet in length for an overall installation in excess of 2,000 square feet.

Goals

The goals for integrating the commissioned artwork into the facade was an exploration that examined the nature of surfaces, color, light and space through the instigation and eventual transformation of California College of the Arts’ main nave space. Through research and inquiry into these topics questions emerged such as what begins to happen to a wall of glass that is not quite transparent any longer but now altered by a shifting and undulating color field of affixed translucent vinyl panels? How can science and an inquiry into chemistry help us achieve this transformation by pushing beyond this affixed material into the actual material of glass and become embedded within it in order to begin to form new possible mediums of translation and alteration? This is an exciting and captivating opportunity for material science to interplay directly with art, architecture and design. For by utilizing different digital and analogue techniques such as scripting, collage, physical modeling, photography, rendering, and drawing, this studio sought to explore the interstices between three powerful and unique disciplines.

Process

This project was a post-semester collaboration with a selection of students of mine from a course run at California College of the Arts. During the Fall semester of 2012 students embarked upon research and examination of perception and atmospheres located and identified through the manipulation of color, space, and content. Credits:
Faculty: Gregory Hurcomb (Studio Gregory Hurcomb / California College of the Arts)
Thanks to all the students involved in the course:
Carl Lyon, Carleigh Wamberg, Anna Korkobcova, Kathryn VanCleave, Sara Schneider, Alexander Decicco, Kangning
Zhao, Jennifer Giessler, Taylor Patton, Alan Hayes, Sin Lao, Bianca Koch, Hossna Nadjafabadi, David Kelley
And special thanks to:
Ila Berman, Director of Architecture
Cathrine Veikos, Chair of the Interior Design Department
Mark Donohue, Chair of Bachelors of Architecture Department Lisa Stoneman, Director of Academic Administration
Noah Bartlett, Director of Facilities and Operations
Lia Wilson, Program Manager, Department of Architecture