Tension and Integrity
This was a collaborative project between myself and Pierre Ahlstrom. It was a temporary installation in a tiny room in the South Hall basement at Pratt Institute. The structure was supported by two 5×5 grids of monofilament. The intersections acted as “points”. Every point was connected to every other point with monofilament. The result was a 3-dimensional structure where different patterns form at every angle.
The process of making this piece required one person to lie on the ground and line up two intersections by eye. Unlike previous pieces, a lot of weaving was involved. Once the points were lined up, a thin dowel would be passed through the piece, leaving the rest of the monofilament undisturbed. Then the spool of fishing line was passed through the opening. It became apparent that the grid was compressing from all of the tension. The solution was to add weights on the bottom intersections to tighten the strings.
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