Thursday Salute to Originals: An Artistic Spin on Submersion
As the title of our company blog not-so-subtly alludes to, we are drawn to delving into that which lies “beneath the surface”. This can be in the form of a thoughtful engineering detail, a glimpse behind the scenes into the design process, or our personal spin on architectural news. What we don’t often come across (or consider) is the literal act of submergence.
Artist Evan Holms quite literally plays with objects lying beneath the surface – of water, that is. And we enjoy the meaning that can be drawn from his kinetic artwork. Holms presents a record player barely submerged in water, the melody remaining generally intact despite all visual logic (and without the zapping electrocution that one expects). The senses of sight and sound clash, begging for interpretation.
Through the connotations within the piece, Holms strikes a fine line between descent into chaos (sinking) and emergence into optimism (floating). He describes his work with strong references to the unconscious mind: “The pool, black and depthless, represents loss, represents mystery and represents the collective subconscious of the human race. By placing these records underneath the dark and obscure surface of the pool, I am enacting a small moment of remorse towards this loss. In the end however this is an optimistic sculpture, for just after that moment of submergence; tone, melody and ultimately song is pulled back out of the pool, past the veil of the subconscious, out from under the crush of time, and back into a living and breathing realm.”
For reconnecting sight and sound, and bringing artistic form to literal immersion, we salute Evan Holms in his work. How can we as designers continue to remind ourselves of the importance of acoustics and context in the perception of space? How can the dichotomy of floating vs. sinking be achieved (either literally or figuratively) in the realization of a design? Somehow, we don’t think the addition of carnival dunk tank is the only answer…
Sources: Evan Holm, Beautiful Decay