event 1 blog | susana esqueda, desma9
Event Blog 1 | Rita McBride’s Particulates
For my first event blog this quarter, I had the honor and privilege of visiting Rita McBride’s exhibition Particulates, located in the Hammer Museum. This exhibit features an architectural geometric sculpture composed purely of the “high-intensity laser beams, water molecules, and the dust particles in the air” (Hammer Museum). Walking in through the doors to the exhibit, I was immediately engulfed by the darkness of the room. A multiplicity of straight neon green lines of light emanated from one side of the room to the other, converging into one another to create an outline of an angled cylinder. The angle of the structure shifted and diverged as I walked through the room. From the entrance, the green lines of the laser were sharp. Yet, as I walked closer, they disintegrated, revealing the particulate matter of water and dust in the air. The room itself was stuffy and humid, it was a full spatial exhibit, intentionally using every aspect of the spatial layout and setting to bring life to this structure.
To be fully honest, I still do not fully comprehend the science behind this art piece—how light refracts, and how water and dust particles imbricate with the lasers to reveal the geometric sequences of the structure. Yet, even without fully grasping the scientific underpinnings, it is evident that this exhibit embodies the imbrication of science and art. Rita McBride said herself in an interview her desire to “go back to a time before hard lines and divisions, when art and science were joined in alchemy” (Reed). Her intention with this piece was to shift away from the schismatic dichotomy dividing science and art, and recognize how both fields can coexist and intertwine. By using scientific foundations of light, mathematical concepts of angles, and honing in to her creativity, McBride created an awe-inspiring exhibit that feels unreal.
I am so grateful to have been able to see this in person, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to see it. Lewie Wilkinson (an artist I love) is another artist who works with “real lasers and glass” (Joel) to produce art pieces that similarly encapsulate the beauty stemming from the fusion of science and art. There are a multitude of artists disrupting the binary understandings underwriting science, art, and technology. Their pieces are reflective of life; I am so inspired to see the boundless possibilities existing within art.
Reference List
Joel, William. “Using Lasers and Glass to Make Practical Psychedelic Scenes with Lewie Wilkinson.” The Verge, 4 Sept. 2020, https://www.theverge.com/21367844/lasers-glass-practical-psychedelic-3d-renders-art-photography-lewie-wilkinson-laserlewdude.
Reed, John. “Laser Work: Rita McBride Interviewed.” BOMB Magazine, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/rita-mcbride-john-reed/.
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