Federico Díaz: outside itself
Biennale di VeneziaVenice / Arsenale Novissimo / Nappa 90
4. 6. 2011 - 30. 9. 2011
Federico Díaz, acclaimed Prague-based artist, is creating a selfreplicating,
site-specific sculptural installation shaped by viewer-inspired data for
la Biennale di Venezia 2011 that gives new meaning to the term “going viral.” The
installation, curated by P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center and the Clocktower Gallery/
ARTonAIR.org founder Alanna Heiss, and selected by the Biennial’s Board and
ILLUMInations Director Bice Curiger, will premiere as a Collateral Event of the 54th
International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. Díaz’s outside itself project is
an interactive, mathematically-programmed, robotically-produced, light-responsive
installation that grows and morphs as a life force onto itself. The installation will be
on view Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 6pm, June 4 through September 30,
2011, as preceded by a preview June 1 at 5pm and official opening June 4 at 6pm.
Admission is free and open to the public. outside itself is being presented at Nappa
90 within Arsenale Novissimo in the northern section of the main Arsenale and is
easily accessible from the Giardini. For detailed directions see below or visit www.
outsideitself.org.
Imagine thousands of black spheres being created and morphing according
to changes in ambient light generated by the fluid interactivity of viewers. The
balls will be fabricated and assembled by two precisely-calibrated robots into an
exponentially-shifting composition. Each ball will represent an individual “photon.”
Optical sensors will monitor the available light at the site, creating a data stream
that controls the robots. The surrounding light will be affected not only by the
passage of time from day to night, but by the number of viewers surrounding the
installation, their movements, and even the color of their clothing.
Although Federico Díaz’s installation is produced free from the touch of human
hands, it will thus be completely interactive. The mathematical program enables the
two robots to build and, together, arrange about 2,000 of the 5-centimeter-diameter
balls every 12 hours, completing a large, continuously shape-shifting construction
over a period of several months. Together, viewers of all ages and nationalities will
influence the sculpture’s ultimate form in this work of “Light” and “Nations” on the
occasion of the 54th Biennale, titled ILLUMInations.
Curator Alanna Heiss comments, “Federico’s work embraces new and alternate
ways of creating and communicating, and I imagine that five years from now, he will
be seen as a visionary within the art world.”
The outside itself installation is an evolution of the work that Díaz created for
MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams, Mass,
U.S. in late 2010. His Geometric Death Frequency-141 installation in the museum’s
courtyard also consisted of black spheres that were milled and assembled by robots
into the semblance of a rolling wave confined by the boundaries of a non-existent
50-foot-long, 20-foot high tank. The data used to create and position the spheres
was generated from a digital photograph of the museum’s clock-tower entry. A
three-dimensional rendering of the digital data, the undulating sculpture “splashed”
the spheres as high as the museum’s second story. MASS MoCA Director Joseph C.
Thompson aptly calls Díaz, “the ultimate shape-shifter.”
Díaz’s project for la Biennale di Venezia’s ILLUMInations takes this cutting-edge
concept one step further by adding interactivity. The shape and composition of the
outside itself installation will be in direct response to its immediate surroundings.
Like an infinitely adaptable organism, or society itself, it will constantly reflect its
environment. For Díaz, the robot is like a “stretched hand of our senses,” that
extends human ability beyond the limitations of the body, in the same way that
society now uses technology to simulate or stimulate experience, or to create “social
networks.” Technology is relied upon to communicate and achieve what the body
cannot—to go beyond, to go “outside” of oneself. |
