The Second Layer

After completing the first layer we attached the blue LED string lights onto the wave using cable ties to secure them to the bottles creating lines going up and down the wave.
Just before attaching them we measured out the length of the lights in relation to the size of the top of the wave (which is roughly 1.9h by 2.5w). We discovered we would need two more sets of string lights to cover and create the aesthetic view we wanted to achieve. With these on we continued to attach the second layer of bottles over the top of the lights. Attaching them using the same method as the first layer.

Once the back of the curve was finished, we were able to move on to attaching the front of the wave. We used milk bottles at the very front as these diffused the light from the EL wire and the light that would go inside the wave.

We threaded the milk bottles the same way as the other bottles, however, we also threaded the EL wire through them before attaching to the structure. This way the wire lit up more of the bottles and was easier to secure in the required places.

 

Its dark, cold and raining in the images above. But the wave must go on! Many bits of chocolate have been used in the making of this wave, as fuel for the makers 😉

Images are our own.

It’s Coming Together!

The designs of how we would form the wave was done in stages, as most of the elements could not be created without one of the others being completed first. These images are of the first layer being wired to the frame, and also the rows being prepared to be temporarily cello taped together then inserted with thin wire, punched with small holes at each end to be wired through, and then finally go onto the welding mesh.
In the background of most of these images you can see boxes and bags, these are all filled to nearly overflowing with the prepared plastic bottles, sorted in like with like, washed in the boxes, unwashed still in the bags, and then another set of stacked boxes with bottles with the base cut off and then yet another box filled with these bases.

As the process of the actual brainstorming and creation of the wave structure has been so time-consuming, this held up being able to see which lights would be most visually effective, so once we had a few of the first row on the top layer of the wave completed, (and using a little imagination of how it would look with another layer on) we decided we just had to experiment.

In the top images we thread some of the EL wire through the frame at the front, with half a row of milk bottles on to see how they would soften the opacity of the lines the EL wire created. We also thought that the blue LED string lights created strips that were too vivid and made one lose the effects of the wave as a whole, however we thought this would change after we attached the second layer of bottles onto the top of the wave.
Having the lights between the two layers of bottles softens the effect of them, emphasising the wave form and bottles, as opposed to distracting the viewer from them.

Images are our own.

Creating the Structure (finally!!)

We have had so many setbacks in the process of actually forming the wave and the supporting structure. We have had contradicting advice in regards to building an armature, the best materials, whether it would stay up and be safe.
Not having experience with creating a sculpture this size before we have been unsure of which is the best advice to follow! In the end we went ahead and ordered one sheet of welding mesh, as this could be used in most of the possible ways of creating the wave, and we are running out of time and have to start the construction. (we can’t wait to get past all the struggles and actually see the installation coming together!).
We figured it would help us to see if the form would work, and be steady enough, by bending the welding mesh back onto itself and holding it in shape temporarily with rope and thin wire. (pictured.)

It was a real relief to return to our original idea for the armature and see that this structure resembled a wave!

As this design requires less plastics, the welding mesh makes up a lot of the form, it would save us a lot of time in trips to the recycling centre and washing of bottles. The mesh also creates a strong base for the installation.

As we were all happy with this structure we had to weld it together! I (Rachael) was a bit tentative at the initial thought of welding myself as was Bethan,  but I wanted to give it a go, and I figured it would be much more satisfying if we did all of the required tasks to form our wave, and welding was one of these things!  It turned out to be so much fun and was exciting to see our wave coming together! Below are the images of us preparing to and doing the welding, along with the settings of the welding machine.

(Note from Bethan: The welding has been my most memorable part of this. I was also feeling a bit freaked about welding, but it was empowering and lots of fun! A skill hopefully we will be able to use again in the future.)

Images are our own. In preparation for Light Nelson 2016

Problem Solving the Structure

After creating what would make up half a layer of plastic bottles for the wave using the brick formation, it became apparent that this method would require even more bottles than the hundreds we had already accumulated; to form the scale of installation we are aiming for. This also meant a lot more washing of bottles than we had expected.

We also had concerns as to the strength of just having plastic layered, if it got windy, rainy, it could easily blow away, sway dangerously, and even fill with water and become too heavy and collapse on itself.
The test we had created by lining the bottles up and joining them together with sellotape caved when lifted, and after being rained on completely came apart, as the glues came unstuck. This confirmed our concerns of the issues that would arise when making the wave this way.

We also bought a tube of No More Nails multipurpose/industrial glue that we had checked would stick on plastic, but again, if we formed the wave out of plastics alone, without the underlying structure, this would require mass amounts of glue, and also consume a lot of time waiting for the glue to dry before adding another layer.

We then tried cutting the base off the bottles and slotting them together where possible with similar sizes and designs. This proved quite effective, as they not only fitted together well, but also had some give to create the curved form in our design.
When trying this we found how well it worked, and even though I had the idea when inserting the plastics together to have them running horizontal, when we discovered how they curved so well it was the obvious choice to string them in rows vertically.

We found some flexible, aluminium wire which we strung through the bottles, and then again at two points by punching holes into the plastic to fortify it.
We achieved this by using a stick of dry bamboo and using it like a giant needle, tying the wire to one end and threading it through the bottles.

This image shows the rows of bottles and our giant bamboo needle

This created the desired curve and worked well, this is how we are forming the rest of the top of our wave.

Nice curves wave.

Images are our own.

Attaching The Bottles To The Structure

After finally figuring out how we would support the wave, and then forming and welding  the armature together, we had to decide how to get the plastics on this and be able to withstand strong weather.
From the start when coming up with the idea of using welding mesh for the structure the plan was to wire the first layer of bottles onto the frame and also to one another. Pictured is an experiment we did using thick wire (5 mm) and threading this through the bottles that were drilled through the bottom and the lid.
We were not impressed with how this worked, they were extremely loose and uncontrollable. This could cause problems when attaching them to the structure, especially as the string of bottles would have to be even longer to create the correct height.

We also considered taping them together in rows and stacking them as bricks either onto the structure or just on their own.(however we were unsure about the sturdiness of just having plastic stuck with tape on their own in a bricklaying formation attached to on the welding mesh as a base).

In the above images we are contemplating the aesthetics and practicality of this method, while lining up the bottles prior to taping them together. The bottom image shows one of us bending up the corners of the reinforcing mesh, creating a tray like effect, as this stabilises the structure and gives it a sturdier form, less likely to bend and cave when moved around.

Images are our own.

It’s Begining!!!

After many brainstorms to try to resolve the issues we are having with choosing the right structure to hold our Light Nelson installation, we ordered a sheet of welding mesh, planning to create a form 2.5 square and 2 high  and building up plastics to the final width to be 3 by 3 and 2.5 high as a sculptural wave!

We first constructed a Marquette using paper. To do this we measured the paper to scale to represent the welding mesh:

The images above would need two sheets of welding mesh, though this looked like it could work well it would not be within our budget to buy two sheets.

We found that using this method of construction and only one sheet would require a large amount of cutting and welding the mesh, which in turn could weaken the overall structure.

There was still much we had to figure out regarding the structure of the wave and method of construction. We thought it would be good to problem solve these when the mesh arrived.

Below is a mock up of another way we could bend the mesh to form our wave, we felt that this method would work well, and save time. As long as we had sufficient weight to counter balance the weight of the bottles going on.

The images below show what the steps we took today once the mesh arrived, in the small beginnings of our wave.

Image one shows the welding mesh as is, then the lay out of the bottles placed onto this mesh. The following images show the steel cutters and then the excess welding mesh being cut off. The image 3 shows us turning the edges of the mesh slightly up to make it more potent and more stable for being moved etc.

Also pictured are the amount of remaining bottles after only using what seemed like a few, we are already needing more after only covering one layer of the three meter base.

I also tried an experiment using glue gun to join the bottles, I tested the strength after the glue had dried, and it held very well, with the heavier object still staying attached when suspended or held in mid air.

Images are our own.

Artist Soo Sunny Park

An artist influencing me on this project is American sculptor Soo Sunny Park.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Soo Sunny Park moved to the U.S. at the age of eleven.
Park received her B.F.A. in painting and sculpture from Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio and a M.F.A. in sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
After a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME (2000), she worked in St. Louis, Missouri as an installation artist and as a Lecturer at the Washington University, School of Art.  In 2001, Park was selected as the River Front Times “Best of 2001, Sculptor of St. Louis”.
She is a recipient of a Joan Mitchell M.F.A. Grant, The 19th Annual Michigan Fine Arts Competition Grand Prize, The Helen Foster Barnett Prize from The National Academy Museum, New York, NY (2008), and The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellowship (2010).
Soo Sunny Park lives and works in Hanover, New Hampshire where she is Associate Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College.

I found her installation ‘Unwoven Light’ (image below) inspiring and very visually dramatic.

‘Unwoven Light’ Soo Sunny Park, Rice Gallery 2013
brazed chain link fence, plexiglass, natural and artificial light
room: 15’6” h x 44’ w x 40’d

My first reaction to this piece was just “wow”. Its otherworldly and visually and aesthetically very impressive. This work brings the otherworldly to a physical reality.

The scale of the work transforms the space it occupies, immersing the viewer with its presence, evoking feelings of serenity and calmness, reminiscent of a river, with the light reflecting and refracting off the surface. The repetition of diamond shapes forms a pattern, creating movement and rhythm, I think this adds to the unity and balance of the overall piece. The structure is created using thirty-seven individual units, the composition of which become a subjective reality, dependent on the space around it. It is an organic abstract form.

The installation’s separate units are made of chain-link fence, within the fence Park has carefully tied in pieces of iridescent Plexiglas which are covered with a dichroic film, these units are then hung from the ceiling and walls of the gallery space. Natural and artificial light sources are captured and revealed, converting the architecture into something sublime.

These elements emphasize the feeling of the space being transformed into another realm or reality.

The artists intended purpose was to capture and “unweave” light, revealing it in reflections and refractions, the light becomes an integral part of the installation. Instead of separating us and the space we occupy, as a fence usually would, it serves to separate and expose the light around us. Park states, “My work often deals with this idea of subliminal space or interstitial space.”
This statement links in with the idea that “Unwoven Light” transforms the surrounding area, transporting the viewer to another, subliminal, space.
Of this work in particular, Park says:

. . . This piece explores lights potential as a structural element in sculpture. The woven form of a chain link fence, fitted with plexi-glass diamonds, unweaves the light. Now we can see it – the light – in purple shadows and yellow-green reflections that both mirror the shape of the fence and restructure the space they inhabit.
Fences and panes of glass are porous boundaries. The divide yours from mine, inside from outside, but both let the light pass through.
Here these boundaries don’t divide us, or the space we occupy; fences and glass divide the light.
We pass among them as the force the light to show itself: to inhabit and structure our space. . .

I think the work successfully communicates the feelings of serenity and transports the viewer to another space, immersing you in this concept of the ‘sublime’, through Park’s use of light. Though one could also see this as a type of escapism.

The work has value in terms of its effect on the viewer’s state of mind, it has aesthetic value and as a commissioned work it has sign value.
My engagement with the work could be enhanced by physically experiencing the installation for myself.

Another of Park’s works I found intriguing is ‘Pseudanthium Synthesis’, which was created in collaboration with Lauren Ruth. This performance installation was set in the PLAYCUBE Mobile Exhibition Space in Hanover.

“The interior space is filled with fresh-cut plants in water that are slowly wilting in heat. The performers dressed in Tyvek suits steadily paint individual leaves with fluorescent paint one by one. As the night progresses, leaves come alive rather than fade visually as though they are accumulated dots in a pointillist painting, accruing to glow in ultraviolet black light.” – Soo Sunny Park

 

Pseudanthium Synthesis, 2009
Flourescent paint, live plants, black lights, performers wearing tyvek suits and headlamps
10’H x 16’W x 8’D
3 hour performance

 

This work intrigued me because I can’t (still) figure out what is the message they are trying to convey. It seems it could be quite a strong statement environmentally. Having the leaves “come to life” visually, even as they are dying.
I felt this work  connected to our concept of using something organic and turning it into something synthetic.
Doing this performance as night and in such a small space added a sense of mystery and voyeurism.

 

Bibliography

Park, Soo S. “Unwoven Light.” Soo Sunny Park. Last modified 2013. http://soosunnypark.format.com/unwoven-light

Rice Gallery, and Lexi L. Sullivan. “Soo Sunny Park | Unwoven Light — Rice Gallery.” Rice Gallery. Last modified 2013. http://www.ricegallery.org/soo-sunny-park

Truong, Janine. “Art & Science Journal — Unwoven Light Soo Sunny Park’s Unwoven Light, A…” Art & Science Journal — A Publication About Artworks with Themes of Science, Nature and Technology. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://www.artandsciencejournal.com/post/56174024330/unwoven-light-soo-sunny-parks-unwoven-light-a

Park, Soo Sunny. “Unwoven Light”, Soo Sunny Park. 2013. Rice Gallery. http://soosunnypark.format.com/unwoven-light#

Park, Soo Sunny. “Bio.” Soo Sunny Park. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://soosunnypark.com/

Ruth, Lauren. “Pseudanthium Synthesis – Lauren Ruth.” Lauren Ruth – Lauren Ruth. Last modified 2009. http://www.lauren-ruth.com/sculpture-performance/pseudanthium-synthesis/

Park, Soo Sunny. “Pseudanthium Synthesis.” Soo Sunny Park. Last modified 2009. http://soosunnypark.format.com/14913-pseudanthium-synthesis

Pesky Plastics!

While researching plastic pollution I found this great article about micro-plastics in the oceans.
It discusses how waste that ends up in the ocean is often overlooked by society and how this mentality keeps people from understanding the consequences of marine pollution.

A huge contributor to this pollution is plastic waste. A particular type of plastic, however, is not widely recognised by the public; Micro-plastics are particles less than five millimetres in size that deteriorate from larger plastic pieces that have entered the oceans. The issue with them has recently come into light due to the use of plastic micro-beads in personal care products such as exfoliating shower gel, toothpaste, and makeup, which all wash down the drain.

These plastics have a massive effect on the infrastructure of marine life, and while there have been great efforts to clean up the oceans in the last few years, eradicating the trillions of tiny particles that have already entered the oceans will be the next big challenge in ocean conservation.

Tiny zooplankton like this one readily ingest micro-plastics in marine habitats. Credit: Matthew Cole, et al., courtesy of the journal “Environmental Science & Technology.”

 

References

Safina, Carl, and Jessica Perelman. “Pesky Plastic: The True Harm of Microplastics in the Oceans.” National Geographic (blogs). Last modified April 4, 2016. http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/04/pesky-plastic-the-true-harm-of-microplastics-in-the-oceans/

Our Proposed Site and Mapping it Out

Now that our idea had evolved into a large scale wave, we needed to reevaluate the site for our installation.

We thought this installation would need a large area in which to have the most impact and presence. As we want the viewer to be struck by the power and intensity of the issue of plastic pollution in our oceans. This is why we have chosen to use the open space of the the car park between T Block and F Block at NMIT.

Below are images of the proposed site:

 

To get a better idea of where our proposed site is going to be , we were provided with two maps. One of NMIT campus and one of the Light Nelson venue site.

I thought it would be more visually interesting to mark our place on the map with an image of a wave.

I designed a basic wave in Adobe InDesign, and together we developed it to the final image.
Below are example of the process:

We tried out different typefaces, wanting something that was in contrast to the natural wave shape.

The finished image, saved as a PNG file to remove the white background, so it worked in better with the maps. The left image below shows the entire Light Nelson Venue area, right is the NMIT Campus map.

We indicated our first location choice with a larger wave and the second a smaller, slightly transparent wave. This was to emphasize our site preference.

We got the site we wanted! Light Nelson Map

Images other than the maps are our own, maps provided by NMIT

Lets build a giant wave shall we?

After many ideas were discussed, discarded then discussed again we were going round and round in circles.
We began looking at images of the plastic waves and whales by Codsteaks, and we had a massive moment. This was our ‘Aha’moment.
We suddenly thought we need to go massive. Our project needed to be large and imposing. Our work was all about the plastic pollution in our oceans, the more we looked and researched the problem of plastics, the more it seemed huge and overwhelming.
It is a problem that many would feel they can’t do anything about. How do you deal with such a problem, where there are more particles of plastic in the oceans than plankton?
Our Light Nelson installment needed to produce this feeling of immensity, of feeling swamped by the plastics.
A giant wave made of plastic bottles and other bits of plastic was the way to go. We want it to be of a size to be above people’s heads when they see it and wide. Below are our sketches of the wave and rough measurements.