Art Project: The Quantum Observer

[islandkat]

MOD: PLEASE MOVE THIS TO ART PROJECTS 2015 Thanks!!
Hello all! Hurray, we get to install this year!! We are so excited to have finally found tickets in the last 3 weeks, and then vehicle pass in the OMG sale .

First Background & Subjects for Conversation:
This probably needs to be a separate thread in another part of ePlaya, so I will expand and write another thread for these comments ....
We actually had a huge art project planned, another big space to walk within like our 2013 white temple space called "Veritas" (pictured in my avatar). For 2015, we "submitted to submit" back at the end of 2014, following the process to write a Letter of Intent to request approval to apply for Honorarium, the two-stage process now in effect. We described a large spiral shaped space, a central courtyard surrounded by 15 foot high walls that spin off the perimeter like a vast pinwheel with a huge central eye. At center of this 25 foot wide courtyard a bigger-than-life sculpture to be in a cage would be placed, a 10 foot tall massive male and female embracing glass sculpture, imprisoned within a 20' high cylindrical cage, set on a pedestal, forever trapped by illusion of reality.... Overhead would hang hundreds or even a thousand bells and chimes to be within finger reach for the ringing. Huge sail structure oil-painted walls sporting immense imagery would have spun out from the big circular perimeter in this "pin wheel" design. It would have been a feast of sight and sound.

Our Letter of Intent Request was turned down along with the majority of the 510 Letters of Intent they received (that was OK with us, but...), yet we also did not get tickets for our team in the regular ticket sale. Out went our big project to the pile of ideas that could not be. Thus is the plight of the artist at today's Burning Man. This is not a poor-me commentary, because we are fine no matter our personal contribution, but it is a Burning Man event quality discussion on the potential trending status of Playa Art. Over 400 applying artists were left in our same plight, and how many more that did not take time to write Letters of Intent but wanted to build, dashing their building plans to the pile of lost ideas.

Please look for my other thread on this issue: viewtopic.php?f=69&t=75071#p1087226.


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But off the drum I beat to the smaller-but-still-great news today:

For 2015, Our Do-It-Fast Scaled Down But Still Fun Art Installation!:
We finally did get tickets just in the last 3 weeks, and we will install on Playa! The challenge was coming up with an much-smaller idea we can complete within 4 weeks. So this is our project, my quickie rendering of it, and we hope still for inner playa placement (but we cannot know our placement until we show up, having missed the June cutoff for advance Playa placement since we did not have entry tickets to apply for such placement)....And we hope you will come visit us and make some music! :

Karyk Art Team's:

The Quantum Observer

Huge steel spectacles hold hand-cast large and deep colorful glass eyes peering off into the Playa, their pupils a tremendous oversized void of black reflection, like scrying mirrors seeking answers of the unknown. The spectacles hold glass eyes, but are they to cover for blindness? The irises and pupils are artfully sculpted and handmade thick glass, black surrounded by blues and greens. The temple stems of the spectacles hold giant hand-made metal wind chimes hanging down, chimes up to 4 feet high, set in chords of 5 notes, several octaves of these chords per side (per temple stem), several dozen chimes per side. The chimes both sound in the wind and are there for the chiming, with hand or mallet. They sound in the wind day and night, a constant melodious ringing. Senses, sound and sight, combine to try to decipher, to make sense of the physical....with the very unphysical nature of lightwaves and sound-waves. Light and sound pierce the veil of ephemeral to physicality. It is the great conundrum.... Where does physical-ness begin? And where does it end?

The spectacles peer far and deep into the observer who is observing The Quantum Observer, who is observing right back, extra large to peer at us as if we were extra small, perhaps quantum small, the place where the real world turns quite strange. The quantum is the place where multiple realities exist as potential all at once, where every outcome is possible. It is a place within which we peer deeply to understand the nature of reality, and yet we find simply spookiness, the skeleton in the closet that Einstein described. If we peer hard enough, deeply enough, long enough, far enough....can we find what truly is?

I wanted to add huge banner mural oil paintings around the perimeter, but the vehicle pass search situation ate up that time too. Nonetheless, it will be musical and reflective and fun, so please come, and maybe we'll be there to say hi and hand out surprises!

[islandkat]

Some work in progress shots for fun:

First, part of the giant spectacles frame, the front lenses frames, lots of welding and pipe bending! :



Next, some of the glass just out of the kiln and still kiln-dirty to get in a Playa sort of mood; this is part of the iris of one of the eyes, even more beautiful when suspended in air for the sunlight to pass through, all made of thick hand-cast glass (these are not all the pieces, it is actually a bit larger); this iris and later, its slightly-raised pupil, are to be mounted inside the lens area of the eyeglass frames above, with a sliver of top and bottom of the iris to be covered by "eyelid" of metal:



Next, some of the tubing becoming dozens and dozens of wind chimes, cut and drilled to hit a C-Chord, several octaves being made; these chimes will be hung from the spectacles' temple stems, sort of like tons of musical earrings out of place from the ear :



Another, tuning the chimes to actually hit the notes of the chords:



And a view of the kiln temp reading, not during firing but during cooling....The kiln cannot be opened until the glass has cooled significantly, more "eye iris" glass enclosed; it is fun to bring heavy art glass to the Playa, and mix it with metal! :





That's it for now. Perhaps another WIP set of shots later. This will not be installed until Tuesday afternoon as that is our arrival date since we are very late ticket buyers, but we are so grateful and thankful to be coming and be able to contribute a little something to the intriguing and life-altering world of BRC! Cheers all!