Extension Gallery is an experimental forum for testing new thought and practice in architecture. It is a platform for dialog between national and international practices and investigation of the relations between architecture and other disciplines. The gallery commissions architects that adopt a diverse set of architectural theories to design and construct site-specific installations that transform the gallery space with their work and allow visitors to explore and experience current architectural thought in practice.
Ball Nogues: Unseen Current
Unseen Current is an atmospheric nebula that saturates Extension Gallery. An immersive installation unknowable in its entirety when viewed from a single perspective, it invites visitors to navigate it like a dense rolling fog. Is it a body or is it a surface? Not exactly either, requiring over ten miles of brightly colored twine, 3000 sagging strings or “catenaries” will come together to form the project. Each catenary spans across the gallery and is unique in length. The designers used custom software developed for the project by Pylon Technical to explore the form and compute the position and length of the individual catenaries.
Philip Johnson’s ethereal hanging-chain window treatments at the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building served as inspiration for the design. Ball-Nogues “sample” what was essentially a two dimensional decorative motif for Johnson then reinterpret it for their three dimensional spatial modulations in the gallery.
The exhibition was sponsored by Extension Gallery, Podmajersky, Inc., The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the United Sates Artists.
March 14th through December 20th 2008
http://www.ball-nogues.com/unseen_current/
