May 14–16, 2021
Art in Odd Places: NORMAL
New York, NY
Presenting visual and performance art in unexpected public spaces along 14th Street
Curated by Furusho von Puttkammer with Yasmeen Abdallah, Lorelle Pais, Natalie Ortiz
Selected molecular animations from the Unraveling series were presented in Art in Odd Places 2021: NORMAL. The animations were projected onto the architectural facade of the Museum of Illusions. The projection creating an expected animated ornamental addition that was created my morphing unraveled models of SARS-CoV-2. Passersby would "catch" the projection with their bodies as they obstructed the path of light onto the building.
Selected molecular animations from the Unraveling series were presented in Art in Odd Places 2021: NORMAL. The animations were projected onto the architectural facade of the Museum of Illusions. The projection creating an expected animated ornamental addition that was created my morphing unraveled models of SARS-CoV-2. Passersby would "catch" the projection with their bodies as they obstructed the path of light onto the building.
Laura Splan: Precarious Structures (Unraveling)
Projections on the facade of the Museum of Illusions
Saturday May 15, Sunday May 16
8pm–9pm
Laura Splan’s videos serve as mesmerizing meditations on increasing entanglements between natural and constructed worlds and the “new normal” emerging as a result. Using specialized features of molecular visualization software in unconventional ways, she animates coronavirus spike proteins by unraveling and morphing folded and unfolded forms. The colors are chosen based on names in the software that are evocative of idyllic representations of nature: blue skies, green forests, ripe fruit and romantic flowers. The animations were developed in remote collaboration with biotech scientists while “sheltering in place” for COVID-19. Discover her projections in unexpected places by following their location: laurasplan.com/aiop.
JRC | Yasmeen Abdallah & Berdscarnival | Sally Apfelbaum | Reid Arowood | Christy Bencosme | Jessica Blinkhorn | Reg Bloor | KS Brewer | Leslie Bush | Day de Dada Performance Art Collective | Hector Canonge | Jeff Chelf | Thomas C. Chung | Tim Cusack & Patrice Miller | Evan Dawson | DKP: Jan Dickey, Terra Keck, and Nashua Pinjani | Shasha Dothan | Latefy Dolley | Tasha Douge | Kevin Dudley | Melon Fernsebner | Kevin Frech | Judy Giera | GOODW.Y.N. | Anthony Green | Christalena Hughmanick & Villière Marianne | Akiko Ichikawa | Julia Justo | Christopher Kaczmarek | Andrew Kass | Sean Kennedy | Ariel Kleinberg | Dmitrii Kulishov | Mechelle Lachaux | Michel Lafleur | Kesha Lagniappe | Georgia Lale | Sara Lynne Lindsay | Hannah Lutz Winkler & Diaz Ryan | Matthias Neuman | Nima Nikakhlagh | Sari Nordman | Christy O'Connor | Liz Oakley | Christopher Olszewski, Raymond Yeager & Burke Swanson | Connie Perry | Samanta Pizarro Aliste Elena & Adam Arhelger | Marcie Revens | Sunny Samuel | AnkhLave Arts Alliance | Ivan Sikic | Anthony Sims | Yeseul Song | Laura Splan | Iguana Collaborative: Sherry Erskine & Bonnie Sue Stein | Caito Stewart | Sidney Stretz | Gretchen Vitamvas | Robert Wallace | Lynne Yamamoto | Xiao Yang | Boyang Yu
...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...
Special thanks to the Museum of Illusions
