Awakening is a large scale interactive steel sculpture of a human head and two hands emerging from the ground which will be on the playa during Burning Man 2016. The head and hands are 20ft tall and the hands are placed an “arms” length away from the head with palms facing inward, as if the giant being is looking at its hands for the first time. The interior of the head is a darkened room that par
ticipants can enter and serves as a theater for viewing the outside world through the eyes of the head, as well as a control room for movement of the head and hands. Using optical lenses in the eyes, the head is a stereoscopic camera obscura that focuses light from the outside and projects an image onto the back surface of the room. Each eye has a colored filter, and participants are given cardboard 3D glasses to give the image 3 dimensional depth with the perspective of a giant being. The field of vision of the projected image is nearly 180 degrees vertically and horizontally, which gives the viewer a sense of immersion. Each eye has a high-intensity spotlight to illuminate objects in its view at night. At the center of the head are controls that allow participants to move the hands. Philosphy
Awakening: an act or moment of becoming suddenly aware. Awakening puts the participant in the head of a giant being who is seeing the world for the first time. The being (controlled by the participant) is able to move the fingers of its hands that it has put in front of its face in an act of curiosity and wonder. This represents the sense of wonder and awe that we see in the world as a child – a newness that is lost as we grow and are jaded by the drudgery of life. In the spirit of this year’s theme, “Da Vinci’s Workshop”, Awakening is a fusion of Da Vinci’s extensive studies of human vision and optics. Da Vinci is known for being the first to clearly describe the camera obscura in Codex Atlanticus, published in 1502:
“If the facade of a building, or a place, or a landscape is illuminated by the sun and a small hole is drilled in the wall of a room in a building facing this, which is not directly lighted by the sun, then all objects illuminated by the sun will send their images through this aperture and will appear, upside down, on the wall facing the hole.”
Awakening takes this idea and integrates it with the fundamental workings of human vision – using lenses and two apertures to create a stereoscopic (three dimensional) image. In addition to optics, Awakening also conjures elements of Da Vinci’s exhaustive studies of the human anatomy, proportions and mechanics.
