News and notes from Reston (tm).

Friday, April 13, 2012

First Triffids, Now Eerie Glowing Squares: The Public Art Invasion Continues

Floaty squares.jpg

While this appears to be the result of a black ops warplane accidentally jettisoning its payload over Lake Anne on its way to an undisclosed location, it's actually Art, with a capital A. What looks like a bunch of glowing squares is actually an exploration of "individual and collective acts of building and un-building, measuring and marking space, and the fluidity and mutability of both water and bodies." Alrighty then!

A "site-situated installation and contemporary dance performance conceived by architect Ronit Eisenbach and dance artist Sharon Mansur, inspired by the history of the planned community of 1960s New Town of Reston, Virginia and the sculpture and architecture of Lake Anne Plaza," Out of Place debuts at 7:30pm next Saturday, April 28. The floaty glowy things will remain in the water through May 13. Co-sponsored by Reston Community Center, the Initiative for Public Art – Reston, Friends of Lake Anne and the Reston Museum, here's what to expect:
The dance performance, a duet featuring Mansur and longtime collaborator Daniel Burkholder, will take place on Lake Anne Plaza and will last for a half hour as daylight fades, activating the plaza through human actions and interactions, and drawing Eisenbach’s constellation of floating frames and tensile lines across the water. At night, the sun’s harnessed energy will transform these elements to create a landscape of luminous, hovering color in the lake. The installation will linger in the quay until May 13th delighting viewers with the memory of the duet—an architecture of situation marking temporal rhythms and reframing place.
Actually, it looks pretty cool. Like the Town Center Triffids, it's exciting to see that Reston is continuing its tradition of cutting-edge, if at times baffling (Serious Art Critics would instead say "challenging"), public art.


We, for one, welcome our artistic overlords.

20 comments:

  1. I think the neon blue will contrast nicely with the slime green water - better than some of the things floating in Lake Anne. I can't wait.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Damn! When I saw the photo, I thought those were tiny icebergs and that this was Reston's commemoration of the Titanic anniversary.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rats, for a second I thought Lake Anne was becoming a giant Star Trek transporter!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Is "Tron:Legacy Part 2" being filmed in Reston?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Peasant From Less Sought After RestonApril 13, 2012 at 12:14 PM

    Maybe RELAC has shipped in some chunks of radioactive Arctic ice from the Russian Northern Fleet headquarters at Severomorsk to get Lake Anne chilled to the correct temperature?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dancing about architecture is like talking about music.

    ReplyDelete
  7. So glad it's on Lake Anne and not Lake Thoreau where I live.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Maybe Restonian is trolling for hits by writing about Lake Anne again.

    Whois Restonian?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Eddie From North PointApril 13, 2012 at 3:29 PM

    Hey Knuckle Duster, go back under your rock...it's been pleasant here without your controversy.

    Restonian, keep on doing what you do, even though I don't always agree with your some of your snarks, you are good for Reston, and I agree this is cool thing for Lake Anne.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Peasant From Less Sought After South RestonApril 13, 2012 at 6:04 PM

    Eddie:

    I for one welcome Knuckle Duster back to this filthy web-log -- it just hasn't been the same minus his legendary "go stuff your fat face with all you can eat Macaroni Grill breadsticks."

    Now if we an get BiCO back from Pittsburgh, it will be just like old times.

    ReplyDelete
  11. BiCO got a real job in Pittsburgh. He popped up on my facebook page and I had a peek.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Question--did IPAR and the Community Center get permission from Reston Association to float junk in Lake Anne? Just asking as it wasn't mentioned in the press release. And RA does own the lake.

    ReplyDelete
  13. No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Gawd awful public "art". I had to take an art appreciation course in college in order to complete my humanties requirement for my business degree. Mostly it was about contemporary art and sculpture. What a freaking waste of time (and my tuition money). What silliness paid with commssions from the public dole. This crap in the lake looks like the kind of stuff the grad p.a.'s would do for extra credit. If this is art then you can have it. I just want my money back.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Trollin trollin trollin
    keep those posts a -trollin
    Trollin trollin trollin
    Rawhide!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Peasant From Less Sought After South RestonApril 15, 2012 at 3:56 PM

    So maybe those two guys whose canoe capsized on Lake Thoreau back in February when they were giving their departed doggie a Viking burial at sea were in reality an artistic event?

    I mean, to quote the Lake Anne artistes, didn't that burial also involve "the fluidity and mutability of both water and bodies"?

    http://www.restonian.org/2012/02/in-reston-not-good-week-to-be-deceased.html

    ReplyDelete
  17. Paid for by property taxes to Small Tax District 5.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Totally love it, wish I could live in one of the places that overlooks it while it's there. Wacky lights + "art" = WIN!

    ReplyDelete
  19. My God. It's full of stars.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I dig it! Let's see more art in the area.

    ReplyDelete

(If you don't see comments for some reason, click here).