Computer Assisted Environmental Sculpture

Symposium:

• SISEA: Second International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from SISEA:  

• Computer Assisted Environmental Sculpture

• Rob Fisher

Venue(s):

• Cultural Center de Oosterpoort, Groningen, Netherlands

• ABSTRACT

  Since 1979 I have pioneered the application of computer visualization to large scale environmental sculpture. My projects have been reported in Leonardo, “NCGA Conference Proceedings” and “Sculpture Magazine”. I will present several themes through slide illustrations of actual projects. The first focuses on the use of personal computers (the Amiga) as conceptualizing and presentation tools. Digitized images of the site with computer sketches of a sculpture concept superimposed will be demonstrated.

  From this research has evolved a new form of sculpture which is a metaphor of volumetric visualization. These “voxel sculptures” possess characteristics of transparency and density and exist within a virtual volume comprised of grids and lines. Illustrations for this section will include “Osaka Skyharp” a 50′ suspended sculpture in Japan (1986), and “A Page from the Book of Skies” a 50′ high x 100′ long suspended sculpture for a new medical center in Saudi Arabia (1989). The last project I will show, “Fandango” (1990) clearly demonstrates the application of personal and high performance workstations in solving an enormously large and complex engineering and artistic problem. Engineering data drove both the sophisticated Amiga renderings and the E&S visualization. Slides of the completed artwork several hundred feet in scale will complete the presentation.

Category:

• Poster