Earthtime 1.8 San Diego, CA, 2016
DESCRIPTION
For its American premiere, Echelman’s Earthtime 1.8 sculpture was installed in San Diego’s Embarcadero Marina Park South, above nearly ten thousand people who gathered for the annual Adobe MAX Creativity Conference.
The monumental floating form is composed of layers of fiber, braided and knotted together in vibrant hues that move with changing wind and weather to create a choreography of undulating color. At night, the sculpture pulses alive with projected colored light.
The work’s title is Earthtime 1.8, referring to the length of time in microseconds that the earth’s day was shortened as a result of a single physical event, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that emanated from Japan. The sculpture’s form was inspired by data sets of the tsunami’s wave heights rippling across the entire Pacific Ocean. The artwork delves into content related to our complex interdependencies with larger cycles of time and our physical world. The sculpture’s net structure is a physical manifestation of interconnectedness - when any one element moves, every other element is affected.
Lightweight and flexible, the sculpture is designed to travel to cities around the world where it can lace directly into existing architecture. It is constructed from technical fibers that are 15 times stronger than steel by weight, and custom color blends that Echelman combines with programmed colored light to create the final artwork.
The artwork invites you to pause amid the bustle and commotion, offering a chance to gaze skyward and contemplate a physical manifestation of the interconnectedness surrounding us.
To date, the Earthtime 1.8 sculpture has been installed in: London, UK (2016), San Diego, CA (2016), Mexico City, Mexico (2017), Beijing, China (2017), Xian, China (2018), Green Mountain Falls, CO (2019), and Perth, Australia (2021).
MATERIALS AND SIZE
Fiber, Buildings and Sky combined with Colored Lighting, Wifi, and Interactive Computer Programming. Fibers are braided with nylon and UHMWPE (Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene)
Dimensions of net: 100 ft. length x 45 ft. width x 20 ft. depth
Installation Dimensions: 185 ft. length x 185 ft. width x ft. 50 height
CREDITS
Art: Janet Echelman
Studio Echelman Team: Cameron Chateauneuf, Melissa Henry, Daniel Zeese, Yoonjee Koh, Lyza Baum
Engineering: Arup: Clayton Binkley
Install and structural support: Branam Enterprises: Mike Linn
Simulation Software Engineering: Autodesk
Lighting: Images by Lighting: Curt Stahl
Festival Production: SO Events
Photography: Matthew Echelman, Ania Bui
Videography:
location
Embarcadero Marina Park South, San Diego, CA