Buckyball: Infinite Possibilities
In East 63rd Street, we were captivated by the psychedelic light through the windows of a townhouse, the new home for Sandra Gering Inc. The light was from Leo Villareal’s most recent installation, Buckyball. Manifest in the form of two nesting spheres, Buckyball, 2014 is composed of 180 custom made LED microtubes arranged in a series of pentagons and hexagons. The artwork takes on the form of a “fullerene,” discovered by nanotechnologists at Rice University in the 80’s and named after Buckminster Fuller, the American systems theorist and architect.[1] Domestic in size and housed indoors, Villareal’s newest Buckyball is a smaller version of the monumental light sculpture the artist presented in Madison Square Park in 2012-2013. (Figure 1)
Figure 1: Installation view: Leo Villareal, Buckyball, 2014. © Sandra Gering Gallery
What is interesting about this work is the way the artist transformed the invisible, abstruse scientific terms (the chemical properties of “fullerene”) into an accessible, interactive visual expression. The unique molecular structure of “fullerene” enables various chemical reactions that result in a rich pool of products. During the past twenty years, scientists have been embarking on an ongoing journey to explore the evolving possibilities of this substance. It was this potential infinity, perhaps, that inspired Leo Villareal to turn to digital technologies: “software programs that sequence light patterns in an infinite combination and with the possibility of realizing 16 million distinct colors, evolving randomly and changing constantly.”[2]
Figure 2: Visitors enjoy creating patterns on installation 'Gravicells Gravity and Resistance' by Japanese artists Seiko Mikami and Sota Ichikawa, part of Translife the International Triennial of New Media Art at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, China 12 August 2011. EPA/ADRIAN BRADSHAW.
The introduction of pixels and binary codes has questioned our common notions of space, time, and sensorial pleasure. Unlike static objects and time-bound, linear videos or performances, this installation does not have a predefined beginning and an end, which makes the entire work a dynamic, ongoing process. Participants can interact with the work for as long as they want, and may achieve a different experience each time. This evolving nature of this work reminded me of a participatory installation called Gravicells I saw in a new media art exhibition in China 3 years ago. The installation provided a space with hypothetical dynamics having the opposing forces of gravity and resistance through special devices and sensors. Participants could walk freely in the installation and see their physical movements transformed into changing sounds and images through real-time calculations. As the movements made by participants and the supporting data generated by GPS were constantly changing, the installation appeared to be under “permanent” construction (Figure 2). Both works embrace a sense of immateriality that enables them to exist indefinitely and break the time constraints of their physical venues.
It is also interesting to see that in a neighborhood saturated with iconic names and familiar images, Villareal’s Buckyball differentiates itself and imbues the space with energy and liveliness by means of its open-ended, infinite formal language.
[1] Sandra Gering Gallery, “Leo Villareal ‘Buckyball,’” http://www.nyartbeat.com/event/2014/CB25, accessed December 5, 2014.
[2] Sandra Gering Gallery, “Leo Villareal ‘Buckyball,’” http://www.nyartbeat.com/event/2014/CB25, accessed December 5, 2014.