The New York–based, Peruvian-born artist Grimanesa Amorós has built a reputation for dazzling light installations that suggest the topographies of distant planets. In the past, Amorós’s sculptures have taken inspiration from otherworldly phenomena ranging from Iceland’s Aurora Borealis to the red sands of New Mexico. Her Uros collection, inspired by the indigenous people who live on floating reed islands in Peru’s Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest body of water, appeared everywhere from the Issey Miyake store in TriBeCa to the 2011 Venice Biennale. For her newest work, “Surveillance,” shown here for the first time, the artist has selected a bleaker, less exotic inspiration: homeland security.
But, surprisingly, she has chosen to celebrate the beauty in “Big Brother.” The installation, which will have its public debut next week at the inaugural TEDxSouth! conference in Rio de Janeiro, where Amorós will be a featured speaker alongside fellow artist Vik Muniz, consists of flickering red LED strips fused with domed, mirrored surfaces to create a pulsating effect meant to evoke our collective consciousness. It’s programmed to flash on a continuous, erratic loop, giving it the feeling of a living, breathing organism standing guard. The artist was motivated by a desire to investigate our relationship with the cameras that have become ubiquitous in urban life. “I liked working on ‘Surveillance’ because I don’t think people are aware that places like downtown are already filled with hundreds of cameras,” she says. “People walk by the cameras all the time but never look. It’s important to create awareness that we are being watched. But I also want people to look back — to become part of the conversation.”
The piece will go on to travel to the MACRO Museum in Rome in January and the MACBA Argentina in May; Amorós is excited about the prospect of showing her work to a broader audience, as well as the new techniques she’s adopted. “This technology is a tool for me, like a brush,” she says. “A painter has their colors. I use light and technology.”