Transstudio

PET Wall, Transstudio

While the trajectories of minimalist light art and assemblage art have been historically distinct, these movements seek to produce similarly charged atmospheres that transcend common material associations. A marriage of these traditions employing programmable light nets and reused beverage containers seeks to capitalize on this similarity, shifting deeply-embedded cultural readings of a ubiquitous consumer product via integrated illumination that alters the material’s inherent banality.

Light and Matter
Comprised of commercially-available fluorescent tubes set within gallery spaces, Dan Flavin’s light installations (see “Untitled,” left) embody the direct and impersonal approach advocated by minimalist artists such as Ad Reinhardt, who declared that “Art begins with the getting rid of nature.”¹ However, despite Flavin’s humble account that his work is “as plain and open and direct an art as you will ever find,”² his installations achieve sophisticated results from the complex interplay of light and color within spaces as well as the dynamic play of shadows cast by viewers of the works. Regarding his search for a plastic treatment of light, Flavin has described the experience this way: “Now the entire interior spatial container and its parts-wall, floor, and ceiling, could support this strip of light but would not restrict its act of light except to enfold it.”³

Despite obvious formal differences with minimalist light art, assemblage works similarly achieve spatial and atmospheric qualities, in this case through the en masse deployment of modular units. Like Flavin’s installations, assemblages utilize commercially-available products and array them in such a way as to transcend their original reading. New York-based artist Tara Donovan creates large sculptures using common consumer products such as Styrofoam cups, fishing line, and paper plates. The power of these works arises from the painstaking accumulation of simple units into large surfaces, which are often compared to clouds, landscapes or various biological structures. Japanese artist Tokujin Yoshioka also accumulates large quantities of single materials to generate unpredictable atmospheric effects. His “cloud installation” of 550,000 transparent straws at Maison Hermes in Tokyo (see “Remembrance,” left) utilizes a vast quantity of lightweight tubes in order to impart a reading of “fluid air”⁴. These works define a new generation of assemblage—the movement that originated in the 1950’s when artists such as Jean Debuffet, Louise Nevelson, and Joseph Cornell created three-dimensional compositions from found objects.

Assemblage art traces its origins to Marcel Duchamp and Dada, and relates to similar movements including Fluxus and trash art, which sought to employ previously used objects to alter conventional readings of consumer products. Through successful experiments that destabilized conventional readings of common products, assemblage art pioneers sought to take advantage of the underappreciated elasticity of material meaning. Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), for example, undermines one’s expected perception of a urinal by rearranging it on its side so that it closely resembles a drinking fountain. Through the employment of this simple means of irony, Duchamp obliges the viewer to realize how such a minimal physical change can provoke a radical transformation. Nevelson’s Sky Cathedral (1982) (see detail, left), on the other hand, transforms one’s understanding of a collection of found wood objects by the way the objects are carefully arranged and painted the same color. The paint masks material qualities inherent in the objects that would otherwise communicate information about their original uses, foregrounding pure geometry and shadow instead. In both of these examples, the cultural associations attached to common products and materials are intentionally reconfigured, albeit via different means. Unlike Flavin and other minimalist light artists, however, these works are ultimately bound to the material sphere. Despite their transcendence of common material readings, the works do not seek to achieve the incorporeal, intangible effects produced by Flavin’s light tube installations.

PET Wall, with full illumination

Integration
The PET Wall installation fuses the historically disparate trajectories of light-based and assemblage-based works in an effort to test potential synergies between light and material. A material-biased reading of light art, for example, is that it is often unfiltered—color gels are applied and wall treatments are used to shield or direct the light—but otherwise the works seek a direct relationship between the source of light and its spatial container. On the other hand, a light-focused critique of assemblage works is that they are almost always illuminated conventionally, and rarely is light integrated into the works themselves. The spirit of this project, therefore, concerned the pursuit of a particular combination of lighting and materials that would lead to interplay of material and immaterial effects.

In explaining her work, Louise Nevelson said that ”when you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created.”⁵ Based on the recently-intensified awareness about resource depletion and product waste, materiality has acquired an ethical dimension that promises to further enliven the found art movement. In the consumer arena alone, concern for resource scarcity has inspired a new generation of second-use products in the form of handbags made from billboard vinyl, fabrics made from recycled cassette tape, and jewelry made from old computer keyboards, for example.

20-ounce PET bottles

Given its increased ubiquity and controversial environmental status, the PET bottle is an obvious candidate for a second life. In 2002 alone, Americans consumed the equivalent of two beverage containers per day for every living individual in the U.S, or 189 billion drinks.⁶ Unfortunately, four tons of plastic bottles are wasted for every ton that is recycled.⁷ Meanwhile, the production of one million tons of plastic bottles from new materials releases approximately 732,000 tons of harmful greenhouse gases.⁸ Seattle-based artist and photographer Chris Jordan is well-known for his graphic depictions of PET bottles and other widely-used consumer products. Part data illustration, part art, Jordan’s immersive tableaus work at multiple scales, allowing the viewer to participate in a process of discovery concerning consumption and resource disposal.

Although there have been many investigations within the architectural academy regarding second uses for PET bottles, the transparent PET container was selected in this case for its particular light-transmittance characteristics. Conventional thermoplastic headlamp diffusers, for example, possess a series of interior ridges designed to control and disperse the bulb light while simultaneously reducing glare. PET bottle injection mold “preforms” are designed with increasingly intricate shapes in order to impart additional structural strength while reducing material—a complex series of geometries that could be utilized to diffuse light. This idea led to an additional realization that an assemblage of bottles at the scale of an architectural screen would dramatically increase the complexity of incident reflections of light, thus intensifying the viewer’s experience. The common 20-ounce Type 1 preform used for “vitamin-enhanced” water beverages was selected both for its particular light-burst pattern as well as its structural rigidity.

PET Wall, selective focus time-lapse

Installation
Different types of LED lamps were tested using the bottles as diffusers, and the resulting non-uniform illumination patterns were deemed to have a positive effect in terms of the increased complexity and unpredictability of light behavior. After a number of studies were conducted regarding the development of a supporting framework for the PET array, it was decided that the inherent structural properties of the lightweight bottles were sufficient to support an eight-foot high, concave wall when assembled using EVA hot glue. A single-wythe wall was constructed in the architecture gallery at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning using approximately 2,000 units. The 8 foot high wall was designed to wrap one corner of the gallery, such that a 20 foot long segment and 10 foot long segment were connected by a 10 foot radiused arc. This particular geometry was selected to create the kind of completely enclosing effect common to compound-curvature photographic backdrops when viewed from a particular distance. Twelve LED nets were then overlaid onto the rear of the wall and clips were used to connect the LED lamps to the bottles. After the self-supporting construction was positioned within approximately one foot of the gallery walls, programmable controllers dedicated to each set of 100 bulbs were set to the same simple pattern, triggering alternations between warm white and cool white bulbs at continuously accelerating and decelerating cycles. When initiated at staggered intervals and speeds, the culminating effect of the 12,000 lights was that of an unpredictable, non-repetitive sequence vaguely reminiscent of patterns seen in varying cloud breaks or heat lightning.

PET Wall detail

Despite the fact that PET bottles were used in this installation, the majority of viewers reported that they did not see the bottles as individual units. Many also had trouble recognizing the particular plastic used, thinking the modules to be glass cylinders. Moreover, despite their transparency, the complex geometries of the bottles successfully disguised and diffused the light sources, so that no bulbs, wires, or connections were readily apparent. These ambiguous aspects of the installation led most viewers to approach the wall closely with a desire to touch it—an impetus followed by a curiosity regarding the cycles of light and a desire to determine the nature of the patterns. Upon realization that the wall was comprised of common beverage containers, the viewer found him/herself confronted by an immersive tableau of human consumption similar to a Chris Jordan photograph, in this case imparted with dimensionality, structure and continuously shifting illumination.

PET Wall, with scale figure

Japanese designer Kenya Hara frequently discusses the fundamental connection between the multiple senses with regard to the appreciation for design. Touch, for example, is not separated from sight, but rather a vital tool used in conjunction with sight and other senses to develop a deeper understanding about our physical environment. Assemblage artists take advantage of the inherent complexity that emerges from the aggregation of recognizable units, thereby transforming the original reading of the materials and encouraging viewers to engage them afresh. In a related fashion, light artists often attempt to transform the perceived physical qualities of a space with minimal means, although the effect in this case is abstract. The PET Wall installation combines these two strategies to set material and light in a highly-charged, fluctuating interchange. The result is a self-supporting curtain that vacillates between the material and immaterial, the conscionable and ineffable.

PET Wall, illumination sequence during 15-second period

Notes
1. Ad Reinhardt, ‘Twelve Rules for a New Academy’, 1953, in Art News, vol. 56, no. 3, New York, May 1957, pp. 37 – 38, 56, reprinted in Ad Reinhardt, Art-as-Art, The Selected Writings of Ad Reinhardt, The Viking Press, New York, 1975
2. Michael Gibson, “The Strange Case of the Fluorescent Tube,” Art International 1 (Autumn 1987), p. 105.
3. Dan Flavin. “‘…in daylight or cool white’: an autobiographical sketch,” Artforum 4, no. 4 (December 1965), p. 24. Flavin later revised and republished this text in several exhibition catalogues.
4. Tokujin Yoshioka, “Super Fiber Revolution,” Designboom (2006): http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/super_fiber.html
5. Menachem Wecker, “Scavenger Par Excellence, Wandering Jewess,” myjewishlearning.com
6. Good Stuff, Worldwatch Institute, 2004, p. 5
7. http://www.container-recycling.org/documents/PET2003PressReleaseCRI-091503.doc 26oct03
8. Ibid., p. 5

Credits
Design and installation: Transstudio
Team: Blaine Brownell, Heather Brownell, Chris Drinkwater, Natasha Krol
Location: University of Michigan
Special thanks to: Tracy Artley, Jason Bing, Lori Castle, The High Point School Students, Kevin McKay, Recycle Ann Arbor, Mark Scott, and Steve Sheldon

The Book
Read more about “Assembling Light” and the PET Wall installation in this design brief, which is available in both print and electronic editions.