Avalanche Dynamics was developed for the 2019 session of the Forrest Island Project in Mammoth Lakes, California. I co-curated the project in collaboration with the Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL, UCSB). Its title is drawn from a term in snow science describing the conditions that produce avalanches, used here as a metaphor for creative breakthroughs.
My research followed three related lines of investigation. The first produced digital composite images of snow made by photographing the same scene through red, green, and blue filters before recombining the images. The second consisted of experiments to produce an optically clear ice lens capable of functioning simultaneously as a temporary sculpture, observational instrument, and camera. The third resulted in a series of plaster sculptures based on the volumetric gradient of the spherical gradient-index lens described by Rudolf Luneburg.
The project was documented through three related sections: Snow Science, Ice Lens, and Luneburg Lens.
For further information and documentation of process and reseach related to these works please visit: 2019 Research
(i) Composite Photographs
Sun Cups Hummingbird Lake July 9, 4:01 pm, 2019
cropped digital photo composite (red/green/blue filtration), (1 & 2), 18 x 18 in.
These images are a response to the research of Jeff Dozier (Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Founding Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UCSB). Dozier and his successors monitor the “color” of what to the human eye appears to be white snow. In an almost comically amateur mode, I took digital photographs of snow through colored filters, and then digitally reconstructed full-spectrum (white) photos by isolating red, green, and blue screens.
(ii) Ice Lens Experiments:
(iii) Lens Sculptures
During my time at SNARL I also made sculptures of stacked crystalline structures (not snow crystals) following a volumetric gradient used in making Luneburg lenses. The pattern was determined using digital computational and 3D modeling.
These Brancussi-like forms evoke the memory of their namessake, Rudolf Lüneburg, who having just accepted an appointment at USC died in a remote tourist town while on a honeymoon fishing trip in Montana.
The Practical Mathematician Went Fishing (Abstact Snowman) fot R. K. Luneburg in Two Parts, plaster, brass, hardware, pine pedestals, shims and stones, 26 x 11 x 6 and 11 x 11 x 17 in.