As I’ve written before, I respond strongest to art that surprises me; both in terms of the idea and the execution. I’ve seen[1] many light sculptures but Leo Villareal’s execution certainly is some of the most ambitious that I’ve seen.
Leo Villareal tweaking the tunnel
Villareal’s work is rooted in the Game of Life, the classic begginer’s project for university computer science courses, but he abandoned John Conway’s rules after one piece and started to work with purely random patterns from which he then selects and combines interesting examples. His installation at the Washington National Gallery is a tunnel of light installed in the walkway between two of the gallery’s buildings (including travelator) – and the result is this (via Vimeo – Villareal “Multiverse” National Gallery of Art, Washington DC).
I love the idea of creating complexity by stacking layers of simplicity. In this case LEDs that turn on and off are stacked together into animated patterns which in turned are stacked and crossfaded to create the endless range of effects that the tunnel displays.
The following interview with Villareal (from the gallery, via MeFeedia parts 1 and 2) has the artist talking about his approach to patterns and discovery.
“When you look at the sculpture you have this sense that it is communicating in some way. It got into this area of pattern recognition where you really wanted to decode it[...].
The video also shows my favourite of his works – a ceiling named Microcosm which seems to be more organic in nature than Multiverse, which feels more interstellar.
Ants on the Ceiling
Explosion on the Ceiling
The Washington Post has an eloquent criticism of the installation calling it “good, attractive fun, but [lacking] the substance that would bring it even close to major art”. I do feel that this is justified [2], but in the land of the free[3] I really do hope that we’ll have an opportunity to travel to Washington to see this installation, even if it is only for the diversionary cheer.
2 Comments
The review is right – the computer science behind the lights isn’t complex at all. But the lights are pretty.
I had to write an Oberon implementation of the Game of Life for my first com-sci project. I flunked out a month or two later. But the lights were pretty.