Art installations
Glenn Kaino
Not Afraid of Falling
Not Afraid of Falling is a multi-media artwork by Los Angeles, California-based artist Glenn Kaino, who is known internationally for his expansive vision and activist-minded practice that includes sculpture, painting, filmmaking, performance, installation and large-scale public work. He also operates outside the traditional purview of contemporary art, instigating collaborations with other modes of culture — ranging from tech, to music, to political organizing. In addition to his studio practice, Kaino is an Emmy and Webby Award–winning producer and documentarian whose films have been featured at the Tribeca Film Festival and SXSW.
The figure in Not Afraid of Falling swings continuously on its trapeze above the Anita Borg Grand Stairway in the Gates Center, with its slow movement only visible over hours and days.
“Not Afraid of Falling is a mediation of time and life. It is a reminder of the fragility of our existence and a symbol of our humanity and our instinct to invent and create. Alternatively read as “Not afraid of failing,” it is an inspiration to take chances and risks in an environment designed to be a safe space for experimentation and discovery. It depicts a young boy who will forever swing in the playground of dreams, as a reminder for all students who pass through that the spirit of playfulness and creativity is always present.” – Glenn Kaino
This work pays homage to Antonio Diavolo, an automaton built in the 1850s by French watchmaker and magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. With no electricity or microcontrollers, Houdin created a remote-controlled figure (a “robot”) that performed acrobatic stunts on a swinging trapeze. In 1977, the remains of the terribly damaged Antonio figure passed into the hands of illusionist John Gaughan, who spent 7 years restoring it. Gaughan, alongside Kaino’s long-time collaborator Gideon Webster, worked together to create the sculpture you see today.
Antonio Diavolo and Not Afraid of Falling show our endless fascination with human-like figures that exhibit human-like functions; this is, in fact, the definition of “robot.” Not Afraid of Falling is an artistic expression of hope, intertwined with methods from the past and technology still to come.
This art installation was commissioned for the Allen School through the generous support of Sylvia Bolton and the Leo Maddox Family.
Erwin Redl
Nocturnal Flow
Austrian-born artist Erwin Redl uses LEDs as an artistic medium. Working in both two and three dimensions, his works redefine interior and exterior spaces. Born in 1963, Redl began his studies as a musician, receiving a BA in Composition and Diploma in Electronic Music at the Music Academy in Vienna, Austria. In 1995, he received an MFA in Computer Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he now lives.
Redl’s works have received attention both nationally and internationally. With his piece Matrix VI (detail), he lit the face of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art for its 2002 Biennial Exhibit. Works such as Matrix II, which was shown in New York, Germany, France, Austria, and Korea, and Fade I, which animated the Eglise Sainte-Marie Madeleine in Lille, France, explore volume and allow people to move through lit spaces.
The Washington State Arts Commission chose Redl to create a piece for the Paul G. Allen Center with funds from Washington State’s Art in Public Places Program. Redl’s work for the Allen Center, “Nocturnal Flow”, uses the 85-foot brick column at the west end of the atrium. In his proposal to the UW Public Art Commission, Erwin Redl wrote:
“Nocturnal Flow emphasizes the vertical dimension of the building’s atrium. The interior brick wall is the only architectural element reaching from the floor to the ceiling. The installation uses this wall to create an enormous plane of light that conceptually links the different floors of the building.
The ambient light level in the atrium controls the appearance of the white grid of 10,000 LEDs mounted floor-to-ceiling on the brick wall. During the day, when the sun shines through the skylight and the light level is at its maximum, the grid is evenly lit. At night the LED grid becomes animated and moves upwards. A light sensor on top of the building measures the external light level (influenced by the weather conditions and the position of the sun) and changes the intensity of the animation accordingly.”
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