August 15, 2020–March 2021
BioBAT Art Space
Brooklyn Army Terminal
Brooklyn, NY
Artist-in-Residence June 2020–March 2021
Curated by Elena Soterakis & Jeannine Bardo
GALLERY GUIDE (PDF)
Unraveling features animations created with molecular visualization software and SARS-CoV-2 related structures projected in BioBAT’s 15,000 square foot “Dark Space”. The exhibition also includes new textiles and video work in progress that will continue throughout Laura Splan’s nine month residency at BioBAT Art Space. The molecular animations were developed in remote collaboration with biotech company Integral Molecular for her uCity Science Center Bioart Residency while “sheltering in place” for COVID-19. The work explores the interconnectedness of cultural and biological systems during the coronavirus pandemic. Splan’s interdisciplinary studio practice often uses textiles materialities and gestures such as unraveling and weaving to understand the structures that form entangled precarity.
Unraveling features animations created with molecular visualization software and SARS-CoV-2 related structures projected in BioBAT’s 15,000 square foot “Dark Space”. The exhibition also includes new textiles and video work in progress that will continue throughout Laura Splan’s nine month residency at BioBAT Art Space. The molecular animations were developed in remote collaboration with biotech company Integral Molecular for her uCity Science Center Bioart Residency while “sheltering in place” for COVID-19. The work explores the interconnectedness of cultural and biological systems during the coronavirus pandemic. Splan’s interdisciplinary studio practice often uses textiles materialities and gestures such as unraveling and weaving to understand the structures that form entangled precarity.
Unraveling
New Animations by Laura Splan created with molecular visualization software and SARS-CoV-2 related structures
BioBAT Art Space
August 15–October 31, 2020
VIEWING WITH ARTIST PRESENT
Saturday, August 15, 1–4pm (Timed Entry Reservations Required)
Gallery Hours through October by Appointment
masks and distancing required
Laura Splan’s solo exhibition is running in conjunction with the start of her 9-month artist residency at BioBAT Art Space. Unraveling includes a series of new animations created with molecular visualization software using SARS-CoV-2 related protein structures. The series was developed in remote collaboration with biotech company Integral Molecular for her uCity Science Center Bioart Residency while “sheltering in place” for COVID-19. The videos are part of a developing body of work that explores the interconnectedness of cultural and biological systems during the coronavirus pandemic. Splan’s interdisciplinary studio practice often uses textiles materialities and gestures such as unraveling and weaving to understand the structures that form our entangled precarity. Unraveling is the first installment of a series of programming that will be presented both online and at BioBAT Art Space during Splan’s residency to engage audiences in discussion of the complex underpinnings of this global health crisis.
...Laura Splan spent three months in 2020 collaborating with Integral Molecular scientists Dr. Benjamin Doranz and Dr. Edgar Davidson over Zoom to produce her series...created using Pymol to visualize intricate molecular models of SARS-CoV-2. Splan explains that “by using the specialized features of the software in unconventional ways, I unravel and distort the folded structure of the coronavirus spike protein. I playfully manipulate the folded forms...
...Interdisciplinarity is the foundation on which artist Laura Splan conceives her work...Through her practice, science is moved out of the laboratories while keeping its axioms and experiments present...A number of its mechanisms are paralleled with the cultural dynamics that inhabit our everyday lives, putting a magnifying glass on the interconnections that exist between diverse fields of knowledge...
…While the complex, and often alienating science behind the pandemic has inundated the globe over the past year, artist laura splan dove into the study of virus structures to explore the interconnectedness between cultural and biological systems…
…Laura Splan’s "Unraveling"...is another animation, using molecular visualization software and SARS-CoV-2 structures to present mobile fractals that made me want to learn more about COVID’s biological formation...
...Looking at these hypnotizing structures is a moment of ephemeral divinity; a tiny glimpse into the dangerous beauty of the world of the virus...
...surprisingly beautiful...That Splan’s erudite aestheticization of COVID-19 can enchant as much as it does is baffling...
...With the coronavirus outbreak, people worldwide have become preoccupied with a threat so physically small that it can’t be seen. The invisible world of viruses has long fascinated multi-media artist Laura Splan, who is artist in residence at a biotech lab...
Project support provided by BioBAT Art Space, NEW INC, The uCity Science Center Bioart Residency, Integral Molecular, Lampire Biological Laboratories, The Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation. Additional public programming hosted by the Museum of Arts and Design. Additional exhibition support provided by Esther Klein Gallery. Art documentation by On White Wall.
Additional project, research, creative, and production support provided by Elena Soterakis, Jeannine Bardo, Reuben Lorch-Miller, Angela McQuillan, Ben Doranz, Edgar Davidson, Frank Masciocchi, Joe Rucker, Thomas Charpentier, Alana Conner, Tobi Schmidt, Yukako Satone, Laura Forlano, Meredith Tromble, Patricia Olynyk
Photo documentation of installation by On White Wall
