On view through November 16, an exhibition in Storrs Gallery brings together data, technology, imagination, and artistic expression to challenge viewers to reconsider the notion of \u201cthe visible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSEE-ING: The Environmental Consciousness Project\u201d presents work by a dozen artists and architects from across the globe that explore themes such as how technology is transforming our visual perception, how \u201cinvisible\u201d forces shape our lives, and how spaces \u2013 walls, rooms, buildings \u2013 are \u201calive\u201d with energy and the capacity to communicate.<\/p>\n
The work of guest contributors is displayed in an immersive, multi-sensory environment designed by the exhibition\u2019s curator, Assistant Professor of Architecture Catty Dan Zhang. Video monitors and large images are embedded in a rubbery floor of shredded tires, while Zhang\u2019s installation, \u201cVENTS,\u201d glows from the ceiling above. Created with a vast array of clear umbrellas, enhanced with blue lighting and a complex system of tubes, \u201cVENTS\u201d produces a rain of fog in puffs that are generated based on an input that hybridizes real-time local wind speeds and the recorded data sets of Hurricane Florence during a seven-day period. The data also affect the colored lights, which become lavender and glow brighter with stronger wind speeds. These \u201cbreezes\u201d can be seen and felt during demonstration periods every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 12:30 to 1:30 pm.<\/p>\n
Zhang asked guest contributors to submit work that addresses three questions: What perceives? What is perceived? and How does it matter? Artists and architects responded with pieces such as \u201cInhabiting Ruins,\u201d by Bernadette Devilat, co-founder of London-based Devilat Lanuza Architects. \u201cInhabiting Ruins\u201d presents an image and video rendered from a 3D laser scanning record taken in January 2013 in the heritage village of Z\u00fa\u00f1iga, Chile, which suffered damage in the 2010 earthquake. This work explores the technology\u2019s potential as a documenting tool and its importance to record the built heritage that is at risk of disappearance due to natural disasters.<\/p>\n
Running across a long line of screens on a gallery wall, \u201cHorizons\u201d is a journey into a city \u201cdreamed\u201d by artificial intelligence. Created by Andrew Witt and Tobias Nolte, \u201cHorizons\u201d was inspired by the artist Ed Ruscha\u2019s book \u201cEvery Building on the Sunset Strip.\u201d Custom artificial intelligence (AI) software generates an endless street view of a fantasy city, comprised of five related, infinite horizontal views of imagery drawn from buildings in existing cities, including Hong Kong, Paris, Amsterdam, and Cappadocia.<\/p>\n
Another image\/video presentation demonstrates that solid matter, which we often perceive as inert, is actually buzzing with energy. Running on a screen embedded in the rubber floor, a video of \u201cThe Objects Pallas and Gottfried,\u201d by architects Mariana Iba\u00f1ez and Simon Kim, shows someone touching the two objects, which then respond to the human touch by emitting sound. The concrete substance of \u201cPallas\u201d and \u201cGottfried\u201d perceives changes in energy flow from the person\u2019s hand, suggesting that \u201call traditional materials of architecture are sensate and perceptive,\u201d say Iba\u00f1ez and Kim.<\/p>\n