Every Beating Second

Every Beating Second
Artist Janet Echelman
Year 2011
Type Powder-coated steel, skylights, colored fiber, computer-programmed airflow & colored light, and terrazzo floor.
Location San Francisco International Airport, Terminal 2, San Francisco, California, United States

Every Beating Second is a sculpture designed by artist Janet Echelman. The sculpture is located in Terminal 2 of the San Francisco International Airport, which opened in April 2011.

Design

Janet Echelman transforms the terminal with fictional nature that subtly engages viewers with real and imagined natural forces. Her sculpture installation cuts three round skylights into the ceiling, from which descend delicate layers of translucent colored netting to create three voluptuous volumetric forms. A series of shaded outlines below are embedded into the terrazzo floor, reflecting the precise shadows that would occur on the summer solstice if the sun could penetrate through the roof. During the day, sun streams through the skylights to cast real shadows that interplay with the fictional shadows in the floor. At night, the artist’s program of colored lighting makes the sculpture glow from indigo to purple, magenta to red-orange. Computer-programmed mechanized air-flow animates the fluidly-moving sculpture at different intervals throughout the day, as if the wind could magically flow through solid walls.

The artist achieved the sculpture’s physical presence by braiding fibers and knotting twine into sculptural netting suspended from powder-coated steel armatures. Despite their large scale, more than 120 feet in circumference for a single form, her sculpture is experienced as ephemeral and weightless. Visually, the sculpture evokes the contours and colors of cloud formations over the Bay and hints at the silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge. Aesthetically, the sculpture looks both backwards and forwards, drawing its color from the heyday of psychedelic music, the Summer of Love, and San Francisco’s prominence in the beat poetry movement, while also referencing the contemporary bay area as a hub of innovation and interconnectivity for the world of technology.[1]

The title, Every Beating Second, referring to a line by beat poet Allen Ginsberg, represents the artist’s interest in heightening awareness of the present moment:

live
in the physical world
moment to moment
I must put down
every recurring thought—
stop every beating second (11-16)

References

  1. ↑ "Every Beating Second Sculpture on Janet Echelman's website". Janet Echelman, Inc.

External links

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