An Immersive Installation by Leticia Bajuyo
Curated by Rebecca Brantley, Director, Mason-Scharfenstein Museum of Art at Piedmont College
August 5 – September 10, 2017
Opening Reception Saturday, August 5, 6pm-9pm
ATHICA: Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (Athens, GA) and Piedmont College (Demorest, GA) are collaborating for dual-venue event featuring artist Leticia Bajuyo.
ATHICA will host Leticia Bajuyo: Event Horizon from August 5-September 10, with an opening reception on Saturday, August 5 from 6:00-9:00 p.m. The Smith-Williams Gallery at Piedmont College will host Leticia Bajuyo: In-Finity from August 5-September 10, with an artist talk and closing reception on Friday, September 8, from 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Bajuyo uses discarded technology to create new forms. Her projects at ATHICA and Piedmont College will be the nineteenth and twentieth installations in an ongoing project in which she repurposes CDs and DVDs to create large-scale installations. Woven together, the old discs form complex vortices and shapes. Theremins provide interactive sound elements. Invented in 1919 by Russian physicist Leon Theremin, the electronic music instrument has shifted back and forth between obscurity and novelty in the past ninety-seven years. Previous and ongoing installations of CD- and DVD-based work include the Tony Hillerman Library in Albuquerque, New Mexico; the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis Indiana; the Lyon Square outdoor Plaza in Grand Rapids, Michigan; and the Nashville International Airport, in Nashville, Tennessee. In fall 2017, Bajuyo will begin her tenure as Professor of Sculpture at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, Texas.
During the exhibitions, Bajuyo will reach out to the ATHICA and Piedmont College communities for media donations to contribute to her future sculptures. Please visit her website at www.leticiabajuyo.com to see more images these installations and to inquire about media donations.
More from the Artist:
“The installations for ATHICA and Piedmont College were inspired by landfills and black holes. Similar to looking across a flat bed of water with a whirlpool drawing all the surrounding water into itself, the wall surface of CDs and DVDs have vortexes that appear to pull all the memory discs away like a black hole in space.
Like a theatre stage set, the other side of each wall of CDs and DVDs reveal the construction methods and that the memories don’t vanish into space. The sources behind the shiny vortexes range from Microsoft software discs to someone’s “Love Mix ’98.” These memories like the use of the CD as a memory storage device has waned, but their potential to assess value and to reflect on change continues.
I started using Theremins in my art due their history of use in science fiction movies and for the seemingly magical way they work without any physical contact. When audience members interact with the Theremin, the audio emerges from the vortexes filling the space with the ethereal sounds that would be strongest when standing in the shiny center stage between the CD and DVD sculptural walls.”
For more information, contact curator Rebecca Brantley at rbrantley@piedmont.edu or 706-778-8500, ext. 1011.
ATHICA is located at 160 Tracy St., Unit #4, Athens, GA 30601.
The Smith-Williams Gallery is located in the Martens Art Center, part of Piedmont College’s campus located at 1021 Central Ave., Demorest, GA 30535.