Lace Futures

Pictures at an Exhibition

2009-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hours before the opening through the opening reception.

How the Cat's Cradle sculpture turned out

2009-03-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

LACE FUTURES©

2009-03-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

LACE FUTURES©

Marcia and Hy

2009-03-08T15:33:00.000-07:00

Marcia Weiss and Hy Zelkowitz, creators of the Lace Futures Exhibition.
Our Lace Futures graphic window wall. Graphic Design by Danielle Quigley, produced and installed courtesy of Sami Qureshi, Signarama of Philadelphia.

hours before the opening

2009-03-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

February 24, 2009. The Lace Futures Exhibition in The Kanbar Center Presentation Space at Philadelphia University.

Evolution of an idea

2009-02-22T17:30:00.000-08:00

laces all around

2009-02-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

If you have worked on a project for "Lace Futures" and have not yet received your lace laces please come to Kanbar tomorrow afternoon and pick one up.

Secret Laser Lace Machine by Eric Magenheimer

2009-02-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

line... static... line

2009-02-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

One of Marcia's students explores the possibility of lacing the structure with split film. Our objective is to create a surface we can project animated graphics on. The original wire sculpture was twice this size but material flex made it unwieldy at that size so we scaled it down. Though the lacing is interesting, the piece is becoming more of an object and less about a line traveling through space.

When I see yellow caution tapes, I find that I am not looking at what they are protecting or what they are wrapped around. It is the path of the line itself that is most interesting as it ricochets from one point of attachment to another.

So I started thinking that the problem with our piece was that there was no real conversation between the wire rod structure and the tape that was on it. The tape is thin and when you wrap it around the rod you can take it to any other point on the frame, and that's the problem. If the tape were much thicker, like the caution tape, it would wrap around the rod and come off at an angle that reflects the angle at which it had approached that piece of rod.

So that let me to realize that the frame we built is just a bit of static. The line approaches the piece, is scrambled back and forth like "cat's cradle" and eventually escapes the piece as a line again. The eye will see the line. The frame does its job in redirection but it basically invisible.
At last we are drawing lines in space. Marcia was out looking for appropriate tape material today. We will have to lace it in place at the exhibition, as an installation, but we will do some experiments tomorrow.

The line shown in these photos has been drawn in place but the real thing should give much the same effect. The plan in the entry below already shows a new version of the string figure sculpture with the tape wrapping around a column, scrambling through the wire rod frame and then racing off across the floor.

The Plan

2009-02-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

Overhead table lighting

2009-02-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

Eric prototypes our simple overhead reflector. It is held aloft on a threaded rod and large washers top and bottome keep the parts square to each other. The rod will be painted black so that the bowl above will appear to float over the table.

The idea came to me when thinking about an Olympic Games T shirt I did years ago.

Hy demo's lace from laces...

2009-02-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Over 90 boards and many more to come Monday

2009-02-20T16:25:00.000-08:00

Presentation boards sorted, reviewed and readied for installation on Monday.

Lace Futures gifts

2009-02-20T16:00:00.000-08:00

Each participant in the Lace Futures Project will receive a set of neon green and purple shoelaces which have been refomed into a lace-like design. The laces identify particpants to each other so they can share their project experiences when they pass each other on campus. Jess, Cristina, and Ian, a visiting graduate of our program, pitched in to make these lace gifts. Though the work wasn't hard, Ian did find it a bit "al dante." Cristina attached the gifts for the sophomore ID participants to their lockers making a beautiful presentation.

Cat's Cradle in steel rod

2009-02-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

A tiny model of "Cat's Cradle" by Hy is scaled up by Frankie, Dan, Scott and Jeff.

Project Board Holders

2009-02-20T13:23:00.000-08:00

Frankie to the rescue once again!

Turning Shoe Laces into Lace

2009-02-20T13:19:00.001-08:00

Turning Shoe Laces into Lace

2009-02-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

Jess and the Viral Video

2009-02-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnjRez3Ib0s

The Human Lace Cam

2009-02-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

Eric and the wireless web cam. Come and be the lace.

"string figures" takes shape

2009-02-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

the face of Lace

2009-02-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

Over table light reflectors

2009-02-15T18:11:00.000-08:00

Ted and Eric H are working on the over table reflectors. These will allow us to light the work surrounding the table while keeping the room lighting off with exception of spots on some platforms of three dimensional work.

Marcia orders the laces

2009-02-15T17:50:00.000-08:00

Marcia and Hy are the co-directors of the Lace Futures project. Among Marcia's many talents is her ability to get uncooperative vendors to accede to her wishes. She is so good at making friends with them that she is often invited to their weddings and family events.

graphic design presents

2009-02-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

Hy is on the left, Danielle, Frank, Michael, Cristine, and another student. Hy is directing the Lace Futures Project. Frank is the graphic design professor. Cristine is an ID student and Hy's
project manager.

Build! Build! Build!

2009-02-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Frankie and Scott are making great progress on the bent metal frame that will serve as the screen. Measure are being taken to light the tables from overhead.

Frankie and Scott are making great progress on the bent metal frame that will serve as the screen.

Danielle's graphics

2009-02-12T14:08:00.000-08:00

Danielle Quigley is a senior in Graphic Design. She is now "tweaking" the final image for our show graphics. It will be printed by Signarama, courtesy of Sami Q, a former ID student of mine.
This is just a teaser. The graphics will cover five of the sliding door panels opf the Kanbar Presen tation Space.

2009-02-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

Ted made a drawing of the door and window dimensions of the sliding doors outside of the Kanbar Performance Space. The drawing is not drawn to scale but the dimensions will be accurate.

In the meantime here is the jpeg of the idea we showed. Notice also that some of the letters get lost crossing the mullions in this sketch. Hard to make the words jump the mullions and not look contrived.

The tagline is "an intersection of ideas" or it might be "at the intersection of ideas."

table based display system

2009-02-09T19:21:00.000-08:00

The long tables act as display panels when stood on end. The inset legs lock in the extended position and allow the table to be secure in an upright and slightly leaned back position. They mimic the position of the project panels supported by the laser cut foam core stands I have designed to slide into the edge of the table.

Hy

wire entry piece

2009-02-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

a maquette for "cat's cradle," an entry piece for the exhibit. My wire hanger idea (bottom) is translated into a full size string figure by Frank and I in my studio. We intend to use split film to wrap the open form and create surfaces onto which will be projected a loop of animated graphics. Final form (top) is now ready to be translated into a 13ft x 8ft x 4ft piece in 3/8 inch wire rod.

Kanbar glass doors

2009-02-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

Early idea for the Kanbar Presentation Space glass doors. Intersecting lines form an "A" which overlays the "A" in Lace. The lines run off the glass in all directions.

2009-02-09T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hy has been working on something to keep the lace in a "cats cradle" formation and thinking of a card or two interlocking foam core pieces to wrap the laces around. He was worried that when people took it apart the card element would become litter. That's when he started to think of an edible core to wrap the lace around. In the supermarket Saturday afternoon Hy saw a bag of pretzels. The lace is knotted together so its ready to be discovered and played with to make string figures, while you eat your pretzel. Obviously, gloves worn while handling the pretzels but are given out by the string end from a box or bag. Making the whole lot is very doable in a one night pizza party. This design is at least a candidate. Let us know what you think. Hy tried bigger pretzels and they make a less effective visual.

Later on in the week he created these shoe lace flower bundles. This design might be harder to make but will have fewer edible parts than the pretzel design. A jig constructed of nails would be needed in order to produce these "flower bundles" of shoe lace quickly and consistently.

Please let us know how you feel about each design.

-The Lace Futures Design Team

Some CAD rendering of the Exhibit Design

2009-02-02T21:04:00.001-08:00

The series of images below were produced to help others involved in the exhibition understand the progress that the Lace Futures Exhibition Design Team has made so far this semester. These images will lead you on a tour through the exhibit from front to back and up to the ceiling.

exhibition notes

2009-01-29T18:15:00.000-08:00

We continue to plan the space and consider ideas for the opening panel. We are thinking about projecting "LACE FUTURES" on a billowing, diaphanous curtain.

Budda and the doiley

2009-01-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

lace is also about what is, and what is not, to be touched, which brings to mind Grandma Beckie's Doilies. Doilies are small, hand made, crocheted lace mats. While very beautiful and intricate, they were usually made to protect the surface they covered. They also are sometimes referred to as antimacassars because they were supposed to prevent macassar, a hair oil, from transferring to, and ruining furniture upholstery. In my Grandma's apartment, all of the chairs, the sofa, and small side table were covered with doilies. The only thing in the apartment that I remember my cousins and I were allowed to come in direct contact with was the small wooden Budda my Uncle Dave have brought back from his military service in WWII. The doilies gave me an idea for a chair which would have only doilies for arms and backrest. I imagined an uncomfortable stool would sit within the wire frame.

birdsnest lace

2009-01-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

the birdsnest stadium in Beijing by Herzog & de Meuron, is a beautiful piece of architectural lace. My own sculpture has often been about creating a sketch in space. This has a times led me to create support structures that would allow for the intricacy of the work, its undercuts and overlaps, and yet come free of the work with the ease of the magician snapping the tablecloth free of the table setting. One such experiment shown below was simply a string or thread, run through white glue and wrapped around a foam ball. After the glue has set, the ball is submerged in acetone and the foam is dissolved, leaving the sphere of thread. When I did see the birdsnest stadium I first drew it in my favorite medium, wire. The later, applied the string and foam technique.

source of light

2009-01-29T10:17:00.000-08:00

One of my students was wondering about my fascination with sci-fi films or more precisely with flying saucers and their bright lights. Actually, use of bright light in film is just one more reference to this most powerful phenomenon. "Let there be light." We talk of "seeing the light," "the light at the end of the tunnel," and the most contradictory "blinding light." I have included some photographs I took in 1974 in Jerusalem which trace my own fascination.

barbed entry

2009-01-26T17:30:00.001-08:00

barbed wire coil behind a translucent panel. lit from behind. The barbed wire photo is by Caroline Härdter and is found on Flickr.

another entry idea

2009-01-26T16:52:00.000-08:00

cat's cradle. a playful web of lines. perhaps a flourescent color like the apple green below.

laced

2009-01-25T14:40:00.000-08:00

the entry to the exhibit will require through a passage through an intensly spotlighted area. As people enter, they will be painted in light with a lace pattern. this effect will be visible to people sitting out in the lounge across from the exhibition space. this effect I want is reminiscent of the end of the movie "Starman" where Jeff Bridges as the alien, returns to his mother ship. He descends into a meteor crater and is bathed in the light from the ship and snow seems to fall through the light. the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" also uses this intense light to dramatically mark passage. the exhibit entry will create a transition from this bright spotlight to the selected display lighting of work within the otherwise darkened presentation space.

Caution Lace Futures Ahead

2009-01-25T14:33:00.000-08:00

thinking about how lace work manifests itself in our everyday vision. those ever present plastic fence barriers came to mind and moments later I was passing one, interwoven with a caution tape and leaning against a pattern of bare bushes.

yet another sample board

2009-01-18T17:35:00.000-08:00

click on image to enlarge

Sample of an early submission

2009-01-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

Note that the designer has tried to provide images which explain his idea and then uses a short narrative to put it all in the proper context. All this and it is on one 20"x15" board!

Lace Futures Grand Assembly Information

2009-01-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

All student work for the Lace Futures Grand Assembly at the Kanbar Presentation Space February 24-26 should be delivered to Cristina in the ID Senior Design Studio on or before Wednesday February 18.

The preferred format is for work to be mounted on 20"x15", vertical, 1/4 (or 5/16") thick foam core. A short narrative which explains the lace concept and an image of the work on a single board is best. Name of the designer or creator of the work should appear on the face of the board along with an e-mail address.

Lace Futures Team

2009-01-16T04:53:00.000-08:00

this is my Lace Futures Team. (L to R) Frank, Sarah, Jess, Eric, Cristina, and Ted. Frank is putting in the rear window of the Kanbar Center in this model of the Kanbar Presentation Space. Any of the team can answer questions and provide information on the Lace Futures Project.

Hy

....lace

2009-01-13T18:02:00.001-08:00

This piece of corrugated cardboard came at the bottom of the bag of Chinese take out. This is the stage of the Lace Futures project where every string you pull on is connected in some way to lace. So there at the bottom of the bag is a piece of corrugated cardboard which has been cut off from a larger piece and cut right through a word, leaving the word "lace." How fortunate. I start wondering about the missing part of the word....
birthplace
bootlace
commonplace
displace
fireplace
interlace
marketplace
misplace
necklace
palace
place
populace
replace
shoelace
showplace
solace
someplace
unlace
workplace

Hy

First Official Meeting of the Year!

2009-01-13T12:07:00.000-08:00

As Ted Layton suggested, we need to have some regular meeting times to show progress and discuss what needs to be done. The meeting times will be every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:15pm.

I have chosen these times because it is during the common hour when no classes are scheduled. I have moved it to 12:15 to give you time to get back from other extracurricular activities that may have been scheduled at 11. The meetings will only be as long as necessary. Some days we will just meet and exchange information. There is a lot of work that needs to get done before the end of January. Also, as per Ted's suggestions, we will set up deadlines for the list of work we need done.

Our next meeting is this Thursday @ 12:15. We will meet in the ID Studio by the model of the Kanbar Space. See you then.

Hy

2009-01-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

I like the name I chose for this project. "Lace Futures." On one level the name spans time. The very old imagined new again. On another it is about the value of ideas and how we can invest in them. "Get rid of those pork bellies and buy me some more lace futures." I woke up one morning with the end of a dream in my mind. Circular patterns rising off a lace tablecloth. At first they seemed to be flying doilies but they were flying saucers.

no thing

2009-01-09T13:37:00.001-08:00

So I'm sitting in a booth at the Trolley Car Diner with my friend David and we are discussing with the waitress whether anything should ever be called something as unappetizing as "breakfast meat." As we wait for lunch which is a breakfast, I catch him up on the Lace Futures project and my recent fascination with voids (see past few entries). As I am talking about nothing which becomes something, he tells me that I am restating a Zen idea. "No thing." Not "nothing," but very much the opposite idea. He puts his finger in the empty coffee cup, stirs it around and shows me that without the "no thing" inside there is no place for the refill of coffee, for which he is waiting.

The character "no thing"

voids

2009-01-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

Why are we so interested in what isn't there?

connections

2009-01-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

Are the strands of thread connecting the patterned areas or is it the patterned areas which anchor the threads between? In "Man on Wire," the Philippe Petit film about walking the wire between the world trade towers, are we interested in the Towers or the wire?

Highways and Rest Stops

2009-01-08T15:48:00.000-08:00

images... I keep seeing different iterations of lace.
A fascinating characteristic of lace are the great voids. Lace is not simply about pattern and repeat. Pattern is dumb in a way. It doesn't trust you to "get it" or "keep it" so it establishes a truth in easily found repetition. There is certainly pattern and repeat in lace but it occurs differently. You think you understand it but then it starts to get sparse. It's a bit like driving on a superhighway. You know there will be other places to stop, other restaurants, gas stations, small towns but then you are out on that long strand of highway with no confirmation that the pattern will repeat. Just when you think you have lost it you pick up the pattern again and there is the sign for the rest stop. It is pattern connected by possibility. There is assurance in pattern, but lace is always a risk.

Hy

Panoramic Views fo Kanbar Performance Space

2008-12-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

As per Hy's suggestion, Ted has photographed and threaded together some images of the interior of the Kanbar Performance space. These images are available for the design team to use and overlay with trace to develop their individual project assignments. Images include panoramic views from the front and back of the space as well as entrance and lobby. Aerial views are also available. By clicking on any one of these images you will be navigated to a window where they will be displayed in their original size. You can download these images by clicking and dragging the image to your desktop or right clicking and selecting "Save Image As".

I hope these are a helpful aid in rendering your designs.

Message from Hy about the Design Meeting on 12.09.08

2008-12-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

Today's meeting was good. Thank you all for you enthusiasm, your
terrific ideas, and your willingness to take on parts of this
project. Let's keep touch and inform each other of the things we are
working on.
Tomorrow evening @6 I meet with Frank Baseman and his students to
introduce the project to them. They will be handling many of the
graphic aspects including long term documentation leading to a book on
this project. You are all welcome to come with me to the meeting.
We'll be meeting in what they call Lab 3--closest graphic design class
to the office at their end of Hayward. If enough of you want to join
me we can perhaps bring our model along. Anyone who is interested let
me know.

Has anyone let Frank know that he is our light and pattern man?
I will be working on a final design for the board holders and some
pricing on them.

Thanks,
Hy