Be like a Spider. Open your Senses. Embrace the Web…
featured artist: thomas saraceno
Gallery: Tanya Bonakdar (NYC) and The Shed (NYC)
Themes: co-creation, haptic design, sensory awareness, community connection, conversations across human/non-human life, spiderwebs
“Algo-r(h)i(y)thms” at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (NYC)
Be like a spider.
Personally, I can’t say that I have ever desired to be a spider. However, I do enjoy any experience that places me in someone else’s shoes (8 of them?!) so I was all-in on my most recent Saturday art adventure here in New York. Actually, it was a 2-weekend excursion…join me!
The first part was a visit last weekend to the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery on 21st Street in Chelsea. I was introduced to this special gallery back in December for a birthday excursion to see the exquisite Jonsi exhibit “Obsidian” (more on that another Sunday). This second visit was, once again, no disappointment.
Thomas Saraceno’s “Algo-r(h)i(y)thms” in the first floor gallery transported me back to one of my favorite Halloween games from when I was a child. A room would be filled with multiple colored lengths of yarn, overlapping and weaving around furniture and random objects, to create a huge spider web in the space. Each child would receive a popsicle stick attached to the end of a yarn color and proceed to wind it up, following their line in/around/over/under/through each other, finally eliminating the web but filling the room with giggles. It is one of my fondest childhood memories.
“Algo-r(h)i(y)thms” feels just as playful. The navigating in/around/over/under/through is still present except this time you pull or vibrate a black cord to hear music fill the space. It is a lovely collaborative piece of work filled with wonder and exploration, curiosity and co-creation.
What a sweet reminder that our participation affects, and is affected by, everyone else in the room. That our individual life journeys are irrefutably intertwined with and amongst the treks of the collective. Beautiful.
Open your Senses.
This past Saturday, I - along with about 40 other co-creators - participated in Tomas Saraceno’s installation and experience of “Free the Air” at The Shed in Hudson Yards. (If you aren’t familiar with this building, it’s worth a look here.) I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect - I knew it was a “spider web” that you could walk on and that there was an upper (52’ above floor) and lower level (12’ above floor). I did not realize that it was a composed sensory and haptic design performance and let me tell you…I was pleasantly delighted!
Each group (upper and lower) was led to their respective “webs” stretched across an all-white orb space with JamesTurrell-like lighting, encouraged to walk out to a comfortable spot, and sit/lie down. I did the lower experience first and watched giddily as two little 8-year old girls crawled around above me. Once everyone was in, the light slowly receded to darkness and sound/movement came up.
The “web” was dotted with nodes of white haptic tech units that sent vibrations and forces through the entirety of the taut surface. As we sat/lay in the middle of the now-dark orb, slow rumbling at various intensity/pattern arrived and passed intermittently. (Ironically, very similar to the subway rumble that just went under me in the co-working space.) The music swirled around the room in a cyclical motion as the rumbles enhanced the experience underneath us.
No one was immune to the sensory interruption and depending on how far away you were to someone else, that vibration could take a different form as it navigated other objects in the web.
As I stretched out in the middle of the “web”, my mind played…
I noticed that I loved feeling my entire body vibrate and bounce in response to the web movement.
I enjoyed knowing others were experiencing something similar, yet different, and it felt collective yet autonomous (one of my favorite states of being).
I thought about how it felt incredibly healing, like a sound bath or a physical therapy that focuses on vibrations through the body.
I reminisced about the feeling of being on a plane as it lifts off the ground or the sensation you get from riding an old wooden roller coaster. It reminded me of what I love about being in water - that you simply exist in a space that is completely removed from your expected, familiar environment.
It was decidedly analog and grounding…even though it was driven by tech and we were all suspended in air. And I wondered how we might start to bring this type of awareness to our own, daily spatial experiences.
Embrace the Web…
I am a big fan of the themes present in Tomas’ work such as co-creation, haptic design/sensory awareness, community connection, and conversations across human/non-human life. I believe they are powerful tools not only in creating art, but in creating space in our lives. But I especially love thinking about the “web”.
As a designer who utilizes systems-thinking, the “web” is an easy and perfect metaphor for how I experience the world. I am constantly seeing connections as I move through my day; some are obvious, others not so immediately related. I use these observations to recognize patterns, see potential issues before they occur, and create conditions for sustainability in our lives. Even in architecture we think in connected systems…the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structure, etc.
When I create public spaces for clients, each of the themes in the “web” is incredibly important in order to design an environment that works for and supports everyone who will engage with it.
Co-creation ensures everyone’s voice is heard and valued. Sensory awareness sheds light on other ways of engaging in the world, disrupting power norms and hierarchy. Community connection provides the resources for sustainable processes. And conversations across all forms of life allow us to understand that we are always, always, part of a larger system at play.
These ideas are not only applicable to public space “webs”. When they are integrated and considered in your home/work spaces, emotional spaces, and intellectual spaces, they provide insight and guidance to your personal “webs” as well.
If it isn’t obvious yet, each of us co-create within our spaces, travels, and relationships as we move through each day. Whether we are paying attention or not, we absorb and track our experiences through all of our senses at any given moment. And our actions and habits affect our communities, conversations, and the systems we navigate regardless of how connected we feel to any of them.
So, in the spirit of channeling your inner spider, I leave you with a few prompts to take with you through this next week. Happy web-ing!
In what ways can you bring attention to the “webs”/spaces in your life?
Can you celebrate and acknowledge your journey is co-created with the collective?
Can you embrace alternate senses for insight and cues to the spaces you move through?
Can you shift or expand your perspective on supporting community-focused systems?
How does this change your experience in your day-to-day? Or how you envision the future?
Our aim is to share a spatial art installation every month to expand how you experience space and bring a bit of beauty/inspiration to the month ahead.
