These Marks are but Fragments of Us: Installation and the Transformation of Space through Color and Light
Exuberance. An overabundance of images frozen in stop motion. Pixelation, noise, reverberation, pause. This collective woven moment of transitory impermanence, a massive transparent surface imagined new, redefined and reconfigured as a degraded pulsating and shifting color field. These marks are but fragments of us...
This interdisciplinary studio examined the nature of surfaces, color, light and space through the instigation and eventual transformation of California College of the Arts’ main nave space. Through research and examination of these topics what begins to happen to a wall of glass that is not quite transparent any longer but now altered by a shifting and undulating color field of affixed translucent vinyl panels. How can science and an inquiry into chemistry help us achieve this transformation by pushing beyond this affixed material into the actual material of glass and become embedded within it in order to begin to form new possible mediums of translation and alteration? This is an exciting and captivating opportunity for material science to interplay directly with art, architecture and design. For by utilizing different digital and analogue techniques such as scripting, collage, physical modeling, photography, rendering, and drawing, this studio sought to explore the interstices between three powerful and unique disciplines. The final installation consisted of over 200 printed panels of an adhesive thin film‑like material that were affixed to the outside glass which at it’s highest point is over 25 feet and measures approximately 100 feet in length for an overall installation in excess of 2,000 square feet.
Adjunct Professor, Architecture and Interior Design
California College of the Arts
Gregory W. Hurcomb is the founder of SGH, an experimental art, architecture, and design firm that engages the visual and perceptual fields through diverse and intricate agendas. Its members seek to amalgamate sound, light, film, and structure into new forms and energies. Hurcomb has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the International Center of Photography in New York; Berlin; and in São Paulo, Brazil. He received his MArch from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. He also earned a certificate of General Studies in Photography from the International Center of Photography in New York and a BA from Rutgers University. He has most recently been appointed as an adjunct professor in the Architecture and Interior Design Departments at California College of Arts. He has previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Davis; the University of Pennsylvania; and the International Center of Photography.
