Bill Dolson wants to draw in the earth's atmosphere using synthetic meteors. RAY ZABLOCKI explores the possibilities of this ambitious project in an asap video.
During the early 1970s, a design genre called Land Art grabbed some notoriety. Land Art uses the natural environment (often in large-scale projects) to create awe-inspiring work. Famous Land Art practitioners include Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson and Walter de Maria. In 1972, Heizer created "Complex One," a huge sculpture measuring almost 80 feet high and made using mostly earth; Smithson built a 1,500 long and 15 feet wide coil into the Great Salt Lake for his piece "Spiral Jetty"; de Maria's piece, "The Lightning Field," uses 400 steel poles arranged in a mile-long grid to attract electricity.
Since the '70s, the genre of Land Art still captures attention, although the projects seem to come in drabs and dribbles. The sheer size of a Land Art project requires the patience and dedication of extremely hardworking artists who truly think outside of the canvas. And it also requires lots and lots of money.
Enter Bill Dolson, a man who is thinking so far outside of the canvas that he's left the planet.
Dolson's work is inspired by the late 18th century painting genre called Apocalyptic Sublime which depicted doomsday themes and often included comets or meteors in urban settings. Dolson's latest project, "Reentry," uses synthetic meteor showers to create ephemeral drawings in the earth's upper atmosphere. Well, at least that's what "Reentry" is supposed to do. Right now his project consists of a series of computer simulations showing how these meteors would appear in the night sky of New York City if he were to get enough funding to actually do it. The project as planned is fantastical: Dolson intends to launch baseball-sized objects through space and into the earth's atmosphere. When the balls burn up, they'll create ephemeral drawings in the sky.
Ray Zablocki interviewed Bill Dolson about the project and in an asap video shows how "Rentry" will work should it become a reality.
See the video here.
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For more information on "Reentry" and Dolson's Sky/Ground works, visit http://www.billdolson.com/ .
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Ray Zablocki is an asap video reporter.
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