Event 2 - Robert Gero's Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces

Recently I visited Robert Gero’s installment at UCLA’s CNSI building, Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Spaces. I attended this event during the opening reception and was lucky enough to meet Robert Gero himself. To give a little background on this artist and philosopher, he is also a sculptor and curator who explores social-architectural systems through his art and philosophy. Gero is very interested in geometry and has done a number of similar exhibitions that explore the unique space of the area he is given.

Taken By Me

The room was dark as I entered, and subtle ambient, melodic noise crept from the back wall as my eyes explored the transformed space. Styrofoam structures shot from wall to wall, bending at sharp angles and taking off in different directions. Some of the structures connected and split apart at seemingly random points. I sometimes had to duck or lean in a direction as I walked around the room. As I traversed the space, I got the sense that the room was alive. I was constantly disoriented by moving, geometric shapes that were being projected because they echoed the structures in the room. The dim lighting produced strange shadows, and the constantly shifting projections made it difficult to discern whether certain shapes were actually occupying the space or merely perceived to be there based on what I saw. This exhibit strongly connects the work of early Renaissance artists’ who explored 3-dimensional space using vanishing points and geometry to manipulate the viewer’s perception. The convergence and divergence of these mysterious structures reminded me of vanishing points, bringing the infinite to life within a confined space.

Taken By Me

When talking to Robert Gero himself, I asked him how he created the structures in the room. He explained that he took the dimensions of the room, built a 3D model of the space on a program and began manipulating it. He made the room the object, stretching the dimensions, multiplying them, stretching them every which way until they formed structured which he recreated with Styrofoam in the room. The product of his work was an infinitely mutated version of itself, this added to his philosophical notion of a fixed space housing the infinite. The space contained itself. Additionally, the exhibit was tied very closely to the space it was in. Gero told me he also based structures off of the shapes of the walls of the room, and of the bridges outside of the CSNI building. Pillows were also placed on the structures. Gero explained that these pillows belonged to the room before his exhibit, thus tying the room to the infinite past and persona of the unique space.

Bridges of CSNI building - Taken By Me

Pillow on Structures - Taken By Me