Wunderblume. Mixed Media, The Nuit Blanche Ottawa/Gatineau Festival, Ottawa/Gatineau, ON 2015. The Nuit Blanche Saskatoon Festival, Saskatoon, Sk 2015. Collaborative work with John Campbell Gluey Group
The Wunderblume is a large interactive sculpture to be exhibited at the Nuit Blanche Ottawa/Gatineau and Nuit Blanche Saskatoon festivals in September of 2015. The Wunderblume is an evening spectacle of light and kinetic movement encouraging audience participation to playfully activate the giant flower sculpture as it sits atop its perch above the crowd. The Wunderblume blurs the line between viewer and participant. This exploration begins by building audience curiosity as The Wunderblume is viewed from afar; the large (13ft x 14ft) sculpture initiates a choreographed routine when nobody is near, opening and closing its petals in preset patterns. This set routine is replaced by an interactive mode when a viewer approaches the sculpture and activates a sensor by stepping into any one of the 8 beams of light emanating from the base of The Wunderblume. The flower then closes except for the petal corresponding to the participant's location, which remains open. When a viewer stands near the sculpture, they can jump into and out of the light making the petals open or close. Participants are further encouraged to explore how The Wunderblume is responding to the them as they engage with it alone or in groups in playful, exploratory, and collaborative ways. The Wunderblume stems from the Gluey Group's interest in the space between viewer and art object. If the artwork is a relative constant, then what occurs between viewer and artwork is a variable, and thus, that interaction is at the root of the art experience. A viewer's engagement with an artwork seems to "wake up" the artwork's potential to become personally relevant. We are inspired by the idea that a viewer's interaction changes the artwork into an object temporarily belonging to the viewer. The Nuit Blanche Ottawa/Gatineau and Nuit Blanche Saskatoon festivals, September, 2015 are all-night, free to the public, open-air art festivals. These festivals bring art to the public in a very accessible format and allow artists a space to test new ideas for the public art sector. Please see http://nbog.ca/en/about and http://nuitblanchesaskatoon.ca for more information about the individual events.
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