Client: Art in the Loop [Art on the Line], Downtown KC, KC Streetcar
Location: Kansas City, MO, United States
Completion date: 2016
Project Team
Artist
Darin White
White Art Studio
Artist
Shannon White
White Art Studio
Overview
SOUNDSHAPES is an interactive site-specific sculpture that highlights the currency of creativity and fosters friendship and collaboration in the innovative KC community. The sculpture symbolizes that people from different walks of life are better when we connect and work together. The series of colored tubes represent voices, synapses, chemical and conceptual synergy. Activated by touching the metal disks, the lighting elements are the powerful points at which memories are formed, a cultural chandelier.
Goals
Downtown Kansas City's division Art in the Loop collaborated with the Kansas City Streetcar Authority to provide a series of temporary Public Art sculptures and performances in the downtown area, and a chosen few that are located along the streetcar stops. Because they are temporary sculptures, they are site specific installations commissions that were curated by Jessica Boursky for Art in the Loop.
The sculpture is temporarily located on the West side Streetcar Shelter located at 14th and Main Street in the Power & Light District in Downtown, Kansas City.
During daytime, the sculptural elements allow viewers to imagine a sort of topography of vibrant community. At night, viewers will activate LED lights in colored PVC tube sections of the sculpture by touching the metal disks between them while waiting for the Streetcar.
Process
Our collaboration White Art Studio submitted a concept and were chosen by curator Jessica Boursky to be commissioned for a site specific public art installation. We developed the concept further and specific to the space, which we were involved in choosing. We worked with Art in the Loop, Jessica Boursky and KC Streetcar Authority with the logistics for location, electrical and temporary installation assistance, providing multiple 3D concept sketches for design, structure and scale communication as well as material samples . We worked with an independent contractor and the KC Streetcar for the electrical wiring. We provided the installation with assistance from the before listed partners. Kansas City Power & Light provided additional financial support for this installation.
Additional Information
The installation of this project would have been substantially easier if it was a permanent public art work. We worked with multiple processes of engineering and constructing plastics, metal and electronics in order to create a functional sculpture. We managed to provide quality work while dealing with challenges of temporarily attaching it to the glass streetcar stop, securing it in the correct location, and making it functional as well as vandal proof and solid. (A book inspiration for our project: THE DOT AND THE LINE: A ROMANCE IN LOWER MATHEMATICS written and illustrated by Norton Juster in 1963).