RESIDENCY FINALIST: Organograph
Chico MacMurtrie working with Geo Homsy, Bill Washabaugh and Gideon Shapiro
Description of Climate Clock Proposal
Organograph is an ever-changing, participatory sculpture that invites the public to observe and respond to the processes of climate change. Visually and physically inviting, it functions as a captivating civic beacon as well as a flexible instrument of scientific measurement, public education, and individual experience. The total mechanism of the sculpture responds to and provides a window into worldwide climate data. A spectacular clock-like system of interconnecting exhibit orbs, liquid flows, and mechanical movement illustrates the dynamic equilibrium of energy and mass flow in the biosphere. The entire sculpture moves two meters per year along a spiral trench, leaving in its wake a living garden and a trail paved with archival culture bricks made of glassified garbage. The width of the trail forms a graph, representing the historical levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The future is represented by a curving reflecting pool. Visitors enter the sculpture via a single stairway, representing the rise of industrialization as well as the progression of the greenhouse effect. At the top, in the humid “Vapor Orb”, visitors may choose to descend by way of one of two stairs: the oil dependency future, or the sustainable future. This journey of discovery is guided by the interactive Learning Atom. These user-specific tokens, using RFID technology, connect to a live database that is continually updated in collaboration with scientific research institutions, and present each visitor a unique interactive audiovisual experience. In the Terrarium Sphere, plants are continually seeded, nourished by compost carried up by visitors, and rotated out toward the perimeter. Each day at noon, a plant travels down a chute from this Spiral Incubator and is replanted in the Time Trail Garden. The atmosphere inside the incubator—and hence the health of the exterior Garden—fluctuates in response to global atmospheric conditions. The sun is the sole energy source for the project. Photovoltaic arrays and solar thermal collectors are clustered along the three great unfolding sculptural petals that dramatically open each morning and close each night.
Bio:
Chico MacMurtrie is the lead artists for this proposal and works using sculpture to animate space and stimulate public dialogue. Together with his collaborative studio of artists, technicians, and programmers’ known as Amorphic Robot Works he has exhibited work in 15 different countries since 1992. Many of these projects have poetically raised questions about birth, death, renewal, mechanical vs. organic life, and the resilience of nature within the urban habitat. Recent projects include two sculptural metal trees that explore different aspects of humans’ relationship with nature: Growing, Raining Tree, a $100,000 commission from the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, responds to the presence of viewers by moving and dripping water from the tips of its branches. Floating Tree for Anable Basin, installed upon a sculptural island planted with native estuary grasses, encapsulates the historical interplay between industrial and ecological activity on the New York City waterfront. It is designed to focus attention on the balance of nature in the city. MacMurtrie’s imaginative use of robotic technology is exemplified in the Totemobile (2006), a sculpture of a Citroen DS that expands twice each day into a 60-foot-tall elongated sculpture, creating a serenely monumental spectacle.
Geo Homsy brings 25 years of professional, academic, and artistic experience in electrical engineering and computer science to the Organograph design team. A collaborator with Amorphic Robot Works since 1991, Homsy has served as software choreographer and chief technical consultant on numerous projects involving pneumatics, hydraulics, electronics, and real-time control and performance software. His innovative, technically intricate work was exemplified in the sculpture Growing, Raining Tree. His art-related experience also includes creating and directing the Large Hot Pipe Organ, a pyro-acoustic musical instrument that has performed in six countries. Homsy has served as artistic director of SlackerTronics Systems in the Netherlands, and contributed to several projects with San Francisco-based Survival Research Laboratories. Homsy’s professional engineering career includes pioneering work in Europe and the US for the laboratories of Quicklogic, Woodward Design Associates, Electude, Addison Wesley Longman, and University of California. He is a founding partner of the information architecture firm Permabit, and a partner in the multi-disciplinary design firm Squid Labs. Homsy will be the lead digital design engineer for this proposal.
Trained as an aerospace engineer and mechanic, Bill Washabaugh has applied his technical expertise and creative vision to numerous fields of design. He joined Amorphic Robot Works in 2006 as Lead Engineer for the studio’s landmark Totemobile project, a robotic sculpture that transforms from a 1965 Citroen DS automobile into a 60-foot-tall moving sculpture. Directing a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, artists, and fabricators, he managed the design/build timeline, CAD modeling, machine design and analysis. Washabaugh has worked as Senior Mechanical Engineer for New York-based Arnell Group, and as a Senior Design Engineer for Genie Industries and Chef’n Corporation in Seattle, where his ZipFlips product was awarded the RedDot Design Award in 2007. His design and engineering experience also includes consumer product design, furniture design, interactive electro-mechanical systems, and kinetic architecture. Washbaugh will be the lead mechanical engieneer for this proposal.
Interested in the role of public art and architecture in shaping or reflecting society, Gideon Shapiro has collaborated with Amorphic Robot Works since 2005. He recruited the interdisciplinary team of artists and ecologists who created ARW’s winning proposal for the Long Island City Grounded competition, culminating in the installation of Floating Tree for Anable Basin. This project explored the possibility of a revived natural urban habitat for both birds and humans, the industrial history of the New York City waterfront, and the transformative effects of rapid high-rise residential development. Shapiro managed the project’s implementation and coordinated an extensive public outreach effort in collaboration with community partners such as Place in History, the New York Audubon Society, Plant Specialists, and the Long Island City Community Boathouse, highlighting the sculpture as a catalyst for discussion about nature in the urban context. He has also worked with ARW on several other sculpture commissions and competitions, including the Inflatable Birds and the Flight 587 Memorial Competition. An architectural writer, researcher, and designer, Shapiro works for the Manhattan-based architectural firm of Gabellini Sheppard Associates. He will be the researcher/designer for this proposal.