Draconaei’s Blog

During the several-day long exhibition of my canopy, I created a makeshift sign explaining the project, and fastened a notebook to the sign asking for comments.  To my pleasant surprise, many people graciously obliged!  The responses show the varied reactions everyone had.  I’ve transcribed them here.

• Fantastic installation!  Too often we forget that there is a canopy above us as we walk through a forested area.
• Nice idea.  Sloppy implementation
• Interesting… I like it!
• Great place to park my motorcycle if it rains.  Great Job!
• When I passed by this am there was frost on the ground.  I through your “ice leaves” were frost on the netting.  I would have gone w/just the netting, and not the parachute, then the shadows would have been on the ground.
• Very cool!  =)
• hung too low… had to duck…
• relaxing to look at during the day.  At night, it has a decidedly ghostly feel, a sheet rustling in the woods lit by eerie lamps.  thanks
• Great work!  Looks awesome!
• Even though this was meant for the sun, it’s amazing at night.  Architecture is a beautiful pursuit; keep up the good work.
• at 4pm I saw the pre-printed leaves + some outline of real trees
• Transparent leaves are a nice touch
• I love that it is constantly changing with the sunlight.  Beautiful!
• Good!  It is kind of art!  Thanks
• I like how the fake leaves look.  However, you should have done this at a time when there actually were any real leaves.
• Three thumbs up!!!!
• I think this is the greatest canopy ever made!
• DONNA ROCKS
• The fabric seams ruin the effect a little.  Good idea though.
• Fun idea!  I think I’ve enjoyed seeing the reactions of people to it as much as the changing light and shadows themselves!
• We should build these everywhere!  More, more and more.
• Very cool - hope you get these before it rains
• Thank you
  - it simulates the effects of camping beneath a few trees, waiting just after sunrise to watch the shadows dance above.

My final semester assignment for “Borrowing Light” was to pick a location somewhere on north campus, and build an intervention/installation that reflected the already existing light quality in that space.

My site was a pathway located between two parking lots: the blue lot behind the Space Research Building, and the connecting orange lot.  The path is rough concrete and it weaves through the woods.  On a bright, sunny day, the light passes through the foliage in a specked pattern on the path- or in the winter, the sun casts long shadows from the bare branches.  At night, a row of lamps arranged along the path lights the way.  I chose this as a potential site because it’s an often used path, but removed from any sculptural works found in the more central and populated region of campus.

There is already a specific light quality in the space, which I could choose to emphasize or draw attention to.  I suspect the light is almost never appreciated, however, because the path is most often used by people arriving for work in the morning or leaving work at day’s end.

Placing a canopy above the path catches the shadows of the trees and branches, creating a “shadow screen” overhead.  My hope was for the installation to draw attention to these shadows, which otherwise generally go unnoticed.

In addition to creating a shadow-screen, I wanted to both convey and toy with the quality of light as it shines through and between leaves in a natural forest canopy.  To achieve this, I laser cut a series of acrylic leaves, wove them into a thin net, and suspended them a few inches above the cloth.  Light passing through these leaves created familiar and yet surreal shadows spaced among the natural branch shadows.  Additionally, the canopy was supported by a branch-like metal structure sewed into the fabric, which then in turn was fastened to four surrounding tree trunks.  In this way, the structure was a continuation of the trees reaching out over the path.

Below are stitched photographs showing the canopy-as-shadow-screen.  Enjoy!

This project – diagrammed in an earlier post – evolved over two different projects in my Borrowing Light class.  I’ll summarize both in this post.

The first followed the diagram of the last post.  In summary, I broke open a series of glow sticks, and drained the glowing liquid into a hollow glass imitation of a compact fluorescent light bulb.  I suspended the bulb with clear fishing line, and slowly leaked glow liquid from the bulb via a syringe down to a pyrex pie plate.  An early time and late time photograph of the setup are below (as well as a link to a stop-motion video.)

[watch the video here]

The glass is easily recognizable as a light bulb, and the light dripping from within has some interesting symbolism: the depletion of energy that often goes unseen, but is highlighted by the path of light contained in a liquid.  Unfortunately there were quality issues with the documentation here, such as the doorknob and visible floor/wall corners in the photograph.  The next evolution addressed this quality issue, replaced the pyrex pie plate with a circular glass dish (cut by a glassblower so it doesn’t scream “cooking ware”) and addressed the requirement of a “screen.”

The screen is made of white museum board with a series of randomly placed holes of varying sizes.  Light em

inating from the glow liquid in the bowl above passes through the holes and creates colored spots of light on the ground.  The rest of the light is reflected off of the white surface, creating a gradient of color.

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Catching the dripping glow liquid is a clear glass bowl full of water placed on top of the museum board screen.  The glow liquid and water do not mix, so the glow liquid congeals into separate clumps that move throughout the water, eventually settling on the bottom.  The water also splashes with each drop of glow liquid, causing a slight rippling effect in the emitted light.

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Dripping glow stick liquid, while interesting, is a bit too abstract for me I think.  Documentation of the second project is below – again an early time photograph, a late time photograph, and a link to a stop-motion video.  Let me know what you think.  =)

[watch the second video here]

(cross-posted in my Borrowing Light class blog.)

After a few failed attempts, I found out that making “glow liquid” out of Mountain Dew is a hoax.  It’s disappointing, but makes me feel a little better about the ingredients in Mountain Dew.

There is a way to make glow liquid yourself, but the chemicals are expensive, so I caved in and ordered larger glow sticks with more liquid in them.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about the core of my glow stick project.  I’m fascinated with embodying light in a liquid, and the surreal quality of actually experiencing it as a liquid no longer trapped within a container.  This has led to countless broken glow sticks in my apartment.  Here’s a video of me pouring “liquid light” into a glass:

Dripping Light

This sparked the train of thought that led me to where I am now:

Fascination with glow sticks –> ordering a lot of bendy glow bracelets online –> twisting glow sticks into different shapes –> realizing these bracelets could be twisted to look like compact fluorescent light bulbs –> realizing that actually, they didn’t look anything like light bulbs after all.  sadness.  –> decided to create a hollow light bulb, fill it with glow liquid, and drain it –> acquired a hollow light bulb look-alike from a glassblower –> fill, drain, record the change over time… but what happens after it leaves the light bulb?

This can challenge the way we view light- it starts as a familiar form (the light bulb) and over time the bulb is drained, and the light only exists in splatters on the floor.  It also embodies the energy we use, oddly quantifying the light by its escape over time.  It thinking of how to push the project further, I’m currently pondering a setup like this:

The light still runs and gathers, and the form on which it drips is very simple (basically a half-sphere, with raised edges so the liquid doesn’t run all over the floor) but the patterns the liquid will form won’t be simple.  They won’t be predictable either.  It’s controlled in some ways, but random enough that I won’t actually know what the final product will look like until it’s happening.  As soon as my larger glow sticks arrive in the mail, I can start experimenting.

The assignment:
Demonstrate various properties of light through an intervention.

The hardware:
100W (equivalent) compact fluorescent bulb, socket, wire, plug

The natural material: wood
My ever-present desire to create harmony with opposites came through in my material choices here.  I chose to use on natural and one unnatural material, the natural one being basswood.  Wood is a material not usually seen as having much of a relationship with light.  However, when thin enough, light transmits through it.  Because wood is an organic material, the light is not transmitted evenly, and we can see woodgrain, knots, and other “imperfections” in the wood by different levels of transparency.

Layering these thin slices (1/32″) of wood on top of each other created an entirely opaque layer, which served a structural purpose as well as an aesthetic one of contrast.

The unnatural material: fiber optics
Fiber optics redirect the path of light through total internal reflection. Therefore, if the fiber optic is bent at a sharp angle or cut in any way, light will escape.  In this case, the fiber optic cable has been notched in a number of places, which appear to be glowing “spots” of light in the photograph.  The effect is more subtle next to the glowing wood.

The difference between the lit and unlit forms shows some potential for light as a design material, though the focus is still on the non-light components here.  The next assignment will focus on the light itself.