SOMA – Linking Hand Veil

This mural is called Linking Hand Veil – it is acrylic and by Ball-Nogues Studio.  It is public art work created by the 1% for Public Art Program

According to their website Benjamin Ball grew up in Colorado and Iowa where his mother’s involvement in theatre proved influential. While studying for his degree at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Ball logged stints at Gehry Partners and Shirdel Zago Kipnis. Upon graduation, he sought work as a set and production designer for films (including the Matrix series) as well as music videos and commercials with such influential directors as Mark Romanek and Tony Scott. His experience ranges from work on the Disney Concert Hall and small residential commissions for boutique firms to complex medical structures and event design. In his current collaboration with Gaston Nogues, Ball is exploring the intersection of architecture, art and product design through physical modeling and the use of digital and more traditional forms of production.

Gaston Nogues was born and raised in Buenos Aires before moving to Los Angeles at age 12. Frequently accompanying his father to his job as an aerospace engineer, Nogues acquired a fascination with the hands-on process of building. An honors graduate in architecture from SCI-Arc, he moved directly from school into a position at Gehry Partners where he worked in product design and production and became a specialist in creative fabrication. He remained there until 2005 except for a one-year stint in 1996 as an assistant curator at a fine arts publishing house, Gemini GEL. In his current collaboration with Benjamin Ball, Nogues is focused on fabricating what they visualize; on process as it relates to the built object. In his spare time, Nogues builds custom automobiles.

This is their explanation of the piece:  Screen is an opportunity to blend imagery of the universal symbol of the human hand with techniques borrowed from glass jewelry making. We use the hand image to evoke hard work, cooperation, coexistence, and tolerance. To achieve this we will call on our experience with cutting edge digital design and fabrication technologies. It is our aim to make a work that is inspiring to teens and a composition through the use of color and intricacy that can be appreciated by the casual passersby from the sidewalk.

The “catenary” is a basic form in nature: a chain suspended from two points will always make this shape. Long necklaces are catenaries. Screen, which is directly behind the storefront glass, is like hundreds of chain necklaces with individual links made of hands made with colored translucent plastic. The chains will continually transform the color of sunlight coming into the Teen Center. The work will provide privacy for people within the Center from the busy sidewalk while allowing views of the street from within. Hundreds of different hand shapes link together to make up the chains: sometimes the hands have an open palm, sometimes the fingers are stretched outward, sometimes the fingers curl as if to gently hold an object, sometimes the hands grasp one another.  Combining the logic of animation with sculpture, the shape of each individual hand is derived from video footage. Arrayed in sequences, the hands produce the impression of human gestures.