Start of something new...

New data sculpture in progress!

I've been working on this most of the time I've been here in Portland at OCAC's Artist Residency. A month or so back I met with Steve Sobie - a water scientist at the Oregon US Geological Survey. We exchanged some ideas and he provided me with some LIDAR maps of the Molalla River in NW Oregon. Looking at maps of the same area over 19 years, I was able to fill in the blanks to approximate the alluvial flows as the river meandered and changed shape over time. Below are some of the concept sketches, working computer drawings, and a clay model showing parts of my design process.

Above you can see a gradation drawing of the 19 years of river maps sourced from the USGS in Oregon (1995 - 2009), although I had to approximate the in between years. From there, a form starts to reveal itself from the 2-D images... a clay model is sometimes the only way to quickly create a complex form like this.

With the help of Spencer and Simon at The Good Mod (from a previous post!), we CNC cut each layer from a sheet of plywood. Layers are glued and clamped into the full form which I then carved and shaped into a fluid form. Ultimately I envision this piece as a cast metal sculpture, so there are quite a few more steps involving silicone, Cab-o-sil, fiberglass, Hydrocal, and a number of other toxic and synthetic substances to make a mold. Keep in touch, there's more to come....

The GOOD MOD

During my search for a CNC cutting service in the Portland area (of which there are many) I discovered The Good Mod -a Mid-Century Modern Furniture Showroom that also does digital fabrication including CNC and laser cutting services - best of both worlds. The space is awesome, top floor of an old industrial building in downtown Portland, and Spencer - the owner - has an eclectic sensibility and a keen eye for design, both classic and contemporary. See some photos of the showroom and a couple CNC fabrication samples below.... they've just recently cut some parts for my new project which I'll post shortly :)

(more at thegoodmod.com)

Snow Water Equivalent Cabinet

I never got around to posting this, although I finished it over a year ago!

The piece is a data sculpture in the form of a wall hung cabinet. The sculpted plywood front is data visualization of SNOTEL data (snowpack measurements) from Ebbetts Pass, CA. Each drawer is one year of data for a total of 31 years - 1980 - 2010. The size of the drawer is directly related to the amount of water stored in the snowpack for the given year. Some of the drawers are so shallow that they are barely functional. Wet years have larger drawers.
See a complete description with data resources and process images at my website: www.adriensegal.com 

And if you are in the Bay Area and want to experience it in person, as photos don't do the form justice, it is in an exhibition called Innovations in Contemporary Crafts at the Richmond Art Center through June 1st along with another piece of mine... more info about the show here.

Bodywork Series by Liz Cohen

"Photographer and performance artist Liz Cohen’s three large-scale photos document a drive she took along the Texas-Mexico border in the Trabantimino, a car that she designed and built to transform from an East German Trabant to an All-American El Camino."

Simultaneously she transformed her body into that of a bikini model, and photographed herself doing body work on the car. Her background is in philosophy and her interest in groups and group sociology which lead her into documentary photography, and now performance and auto design and fabrication. See a video of the car in action at Cranbrook Academy's website
and an in depth interview at Bad at Sports.

 

A Comparative View of the Principal Waterfalls, Islands, Lakes, Rivers, and Mountains...

(via David Rumsey Historical Map Collection online)

Alluvial Flows of the Mississippi River

Ancient Courses of the Mississippi River Meander Belt

by Harold Fisk, 1944

Maps today just don't compare. Fisk created 44 over-sized plates mapping the alluvial flows of the Mississippi River from the headwaters  to the delta - they are such beautiful infographics, and made way before satellite imagery.

(see more at radicalcartogrpahy)
(download hi-res images of the complete set (44) plates from the Army Corps of Engineers)

tree root installation by giuseppe licari

I love the change in perspective.
Simple idea but a profound impact.
I can't imagine this was an easy installation to pull off either. you think the tops of the trees are on the next floor up?

 (via designboom)

Vanished Lake

So what have I been working on during the residency?
Besides all the art research, I've been somewhat obsessed with this lake - well, what used to be a lake - in the central valley of California. Lake Tulare used to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi, a huge area (up to 680 square miles!) used to be underwater. With the swampland act, reclamation, and growth of industrial agriculture, the rivers that once fed the lake have been dammed and diverted, the water used for crops, and the lake completely disappeared. It still floods in very wet years.

I've been looking at a lot of old maps to see how the shape of the lake changed over time as humans harnessed it's water for their benefit. That being said, a great amount of produce and cotton are now grown on the lake bed that remains.

And it no longer exists - seen today from google satellite view....

And here's some drawings and models from my studio - how to create a monument to a lake that has vanished is proving more difficult that I hoped, but something tangible will come from this eventually.
For a great comprehensive book on Tulare Lake's history, check out Vanishing Landscape...

To be continued....