My sculpture, prototypes, and digital prints focus on the hidden aspects of our surroundings, emphasizing a visual/tactile way of understanding global and metropolitan functions. The work has significance in its ability to provide an aesthetic view of the behavior of data through time, as well as its capacity to interpret all manner of number streams. Research and development behind the project has, over the past eight years, led to the capacity to convert long sequences of numbers into three-dimensional prototypes. Input from regional, national, and global information databanks can be printed out as 2D images, produced as sculptural forms, or viewed as animations. Large scale DVD projections of the work allow viewers to travel around and through brightly colored numeric worlds in ongoing flybys.
All my recent images have information-bearing surfaces created from long streams of data. They are developed from screen-view renders and sculptural productions of 3D digital files with a broad capability for variation. New ways of seeing the operations of our surroundings are made possible through dimensional visualization of the endless streams of statistics that constantly record natural and human cycles. An expanded awareness of systems, cities, time, and the larger world is evoked. It is my hope that this can aid in a deeper understanding of the attributes of organizations and environments. The artworks are meant to detect long-term patterns in global phenomena, enhance sensitivity to the invisibly functioning aspects of our surroundings, and offer an expanded definition of sculpture. The work lends clarity to the grand cycles of nature and human activity, while revealing fresh perspectives on day-to-day metropolitan life.
Many global and regional number streams provided sources for these images: river and well-flow levels, climatological data bases, tidal harmonics in the upper atmosphere, earth core data, atmospheric components and contaminant levels, global positioning anomalies, energy consumption, venue attendance, and airport runway data, to name a few. The data streams were taken through a computer program written specifically for the project. The results are amazing and beautiful, sometimes echoing forms in nature.
A Creative Research Grant from the Institute for Studies in the Arts, (now the Arts, Media, and Engineering program) of the Katherine K. Herberger College of Fine Arts at Arizona State University, sponsored the initial project. Additional resources for were provided through the PRISM (Partnership for Research in Spatial Modeling) Laboratories at Arizona State University, a Katherine K. Herberger School of Fine Arts Research Award, and a Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Temporary Projects Commission. All of my small prototyped sculptures were cast and finished at the Kohler Iron Foundry as part of a John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry residency. I wish to give special thanks to Rajesh Konda and Scott Van Note, who spent invaluable hours helping to develop the project. The first color images were rendered at the remote and beautiful Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, in the summer of 2002.