Luftwerk's Film Noir Redemption in Couch Alley - only through Saturday

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Flow/IM Fluss continues in Couch Place from 5:00 p.m. to midnight through Saturday, September 20th.  The weather project for Friday, warm and rainless, looks to be especially perfect.

When you think of the black-and-white photography of the great film noir thrillers of the 1940's and 50's, you think of the striking interaction of shadows and fog, and of night pierced by dramatic shafts of light.  It's a prototypical expression of the city and its snares, the allure and danger of the only partially seen.

The passageway bridging State and Dearborn midblock between Lake and Randolph is called Couch Place.  In Old Chicago, it was a street, the southern boundary of the Tremont House, one of the city's early high-end hotels.  Long ago, however, it became nothing more than a narrow alley, a place where deliveries were made, garbage was kept to be picked up, and rats scurried across the pavement, unseen but heard.  The fine facades along Randolph Street may have been of gleaming terra cotta, but at the stage door end of the building, it was plain, homely alley brick, often with cheap paint flaking off of its surface.  The bright marquees out front spoke to our hopes and illusions, the claustrophobic, menacing alleys to our fears and darker realities.  It was kind of place you could imagine Elisha Cook, Jr. skulking in a doorframe, or Humphrey Bogart emerging rubbing his head after being hit from behind by someone who thought he was getting too close to the truth.

And then they went and cleaned it up. As a part of the attempt to revive Chicago's theater district, Couch Place was gussied up in 2007.  The dumpsters went away, new paving installed, and vintage posters mounted evoking the days when the alley held the stage doors to movie palaces such as the Oriental and State-Lake.  The tall neon sign for the new Goodman theater lined up as the alley's visual terminus to the west.

Even with all that, Couch Place remains very sparsely traveled.  Thursday night, however, it was wall-to-wall people, as it was premiere of FLOW/Im Fluss, a new light and water installation by Luftwerk, a/k/a artists Petra Bachmeier and Sean Gallero, creators of such striking temporary artworks as Luminous Field at Cloud Gate, and this past winter's Spring Light for the Chinese New Year, at the Chicago Cultural Center and McCormick skating rink at Millennium Park.  In October, the pair will mount INsite, lighting up Mies van der Rohe's iconic Farnsworth house.

Petra Bachmeier and Sean Gallero being photographed
by Public Art in Chicago's Jyoti Srivastava

Flow/Im Fluss celebrates the 20th anniversary of Chicago and Hamburg being named as Sister Cities.

Inspired by the element of water and its all-encompassing connectivity, Luftwerk�s FLOW/Im Fluss visualizes the characteristics of the Chicago River and Hamburg�s River Elbe through video compositions projected on water screens. 

Based on scientifically collected measurements like oxygen levels, currents, contamination, and chemical compounds FLOW/Im Fluss interprets data from the two rivers to create a visual experience. ?The projected video will illuminate screens made of water - inviting viewers to immerse themselves into the flow of data collected from both rivers. 

The event, which also includes music, is sponsored by the Goethe Institut and Chicago Loop Alliance, as part of its sequence of events Activating spaces in the Loop with temporary art installations.

The best way to experience Flow/Im Fluss is to walk through it, from State to Dearborn and back. Step into the lines and swirls of light piercing the darkness, and walk through the fine mist that both provides the screen for the projected geometric forms and imparts to you as a visitor an almost baptismal cleansing of the dirt and squalor of the �dark alley�  of the soul. 

Up on the Rooftop - Night and Art at Marina City with Luftwerk, soon to light Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House

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Saturday night marked another showing of the work of Luftwerk light sculptors Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero.

Marina City rooftop core at daytime

A large crowd made the trek up to the 60th floor rooftop of the west tower of Bertrand Goldberg's iconic Marina City to see a projection of  Luftwerk's geometric transformations wrapping around almost the entire circumference of the tall round service core that punctuates the top of each tower.

The presentation had major competition from the nighttime cityscape of Chicago stretching in all directions far into the horizon.

But then again, there was more than enough time to enjoy both.

Luftwerk has two other major projects coming up.  On September 17th to 20th, Couch Place, the theater district alley that runs between State and Dearborn behind the Ford Oriental Theater will be the site for the Chicago Loop Alliance sponsored FLOW/Im Fluss . . .

Inspired by the element of water and its all-encompassing connectivity, Luftwerk�s FLOW/Im Fluss visualizes the characteristics of the Chicago River and Hamburg�s River Elbe through video compositions projected on water screens.

Based on scientifically collected measurements like oxygen levels, currents, contamination, and chemical compounds FLOW/Im Fluss interprets data from the two rivers to create a visual experience. ?The projected video will illuminate screens made of water - inviting viewers to immerse themselves into the flow of data collected from both rivers.

The installation celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Sister Cities relationship between Chicago and Hamburg. (And since it's the Elbe and not the Rhine, you don't have to look for any shiny gold rings to grab at, or fear being pulled under by some river maidens with a funny sense of fun.)

There will also be performances of Birgit Uhler's Traces, for trumpet, radio, speaker, objects and tape feeds each night the FLOW/Im Fluss is on display.
Then on October 17th, through the 20th, Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in suburban Plano will be the focus for INsite, in which Luftwerk will transform the iconic structure �into a canvas of light and sound, featuring original music by percussionist Owen Clayton Condon and curated by Steve Dietz.�  Tickets are $100.00 ($200.00 for opening night), which may seem a bit steep until you realize that it includes transportation from Chicago to the Farnsworth House and back, a trip of 58 miles each way.

Read More about Luftwerk in Chicago and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House:

Luminous Field, at Millennium Park's Cloud Gate sculpture

Luftwerk takes over Cultural Center Facade and McCormick Rink ice to celebrate Chinese New Year

Glass House Struck by Gavel - the history and rescue of Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House

The Little Farmhouse that Roared: Cycles of Time at Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House

Only til Saturday for Luftwerk campaign to light up Mies' Farnsworth House, which Town Hall meetings this week will discuss saving

[UPDATE 6/2/14:  The Kickstarter campaign's goal was met and the project is on.]

You have only until May 31 to contribute to a Kickstarter campaign to make Luftwerk's INsite project a reality.

This new project, INsite, will invite the public to experience a public art intervention on the Farnsworth House from sunset into evening. Drawing from insights into the ways that digital projections interact with architecture, INsite will immerse the building in a composition of light and sound. 

The proposal, scheduled for this fall, would be a collaboration between Luftwerk designs Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero and video designer and Livius Pasara and percussionist and composer Clayton Condon.  The team also created Celebrating 75 Years of Nature at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and 2012's Luminous Field, which brought relief to a cold Chicago winter with color, light and sound centered on Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park.  This past February, Luftwerk's Spring Light brought color and pattern to the facade of the Chicago Cultural Center and the skaters at Millennium Park.

The Luftwerk designs describe Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth house �a space mirrored upon itself. As the projected light travelled through the glass walls, a myriad of reflections appeared, seemingly expanding the interior.� The INSite lighting project, requiring 10 weatherproofed projects, loudspeakers and a computer, would bring � a heightened awareness of the house's innate characteristics. It dissolves the structure and distills it into a pure experience of light and space. It becomes an architecture of light.�

As of Wednesday morning, Luftwerk's INsite campaign was about 3/5 towards its $25,000 goal, from a total of 102 contributors.  The project will only be funded if the full goal is reached by 7:01 a.m., this Saturday, May 31st.  You can read more - and contribute - here.

Luftwork's illuminations are not only a mesmerizing, but they encourage us to see their subject structures in new and revealing way.  INsite would come at a crucial time for Farnsworth, which is struggling to cope with a series of devastating floods that are becoming far more common than the historical record would indicate.

Saving Farnsworth House subject of two Town Hall Meetings this week

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which saved Farnsworth House for the public when it purchased it at auction in 2003, has initiated a Flood Mitigation Project and worked with architects, engineers, critics, DOCOMOMO, AIA, and other activists to come up with three proposals to remove the iconic house from future harm, from moving the structure to higher ground atop landfill, to raising it up on hydraulic lifts.

Those proposals will be the subject of two public meetings.  The first takes place this Thursday, May 29th, at the Mies designed Crown Hall on the IIT campus.  The second is mid-day Friday, May 30th at the Plano Community Public Library, not far from the house, itself.


Read More:

Chicago Rediscovred in a Luminous Field

 ????! Architecture as Canvas: Luftwerks takes over Cultural Center Facade to celebrate Chinese New Year in Chicago 

 Farnsworth House Flood Mitigation Project website

Glass House Struck by Gavel - the History and Saving of Farnsworth House

The Little Farmhouse that Roared: Cycles of time at Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House

????! Architecture as Canvas: Luftwerks takes over Cultural Center Facade to celebrate Chinese New Year in Chicago

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You apparently can't keep Luftwerk away from the Chicago Cultural Center.  It's been less than a month since their striking media exhibit Shift was on display in the CCL's 2nd floor galleriess.  Now Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero's mastery of color, light, video and projection has left the building and taken over it's long Michigan Avenue facade with Spring Light, which opened last night and repeats tonight (Saturday) and Sunday, 5 to 10:00 p.m.  It's described as . . .

A celebration of light and projection inspired by Chinese philosophy, art, architecture and traditional folklore illuminate the Chicago Cultural Center to commemorate the Chinese New Year. Spring Light transforms the building into a moving world where images of nature, people, geometry and color all intertwine in an artistic and harmonious balance.

Spring Light  is an initiative of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Choose Chicago, the city's tourism operation.  It's a two-week, city-wide celebration of the Chinese New Year and Spring Festival with a sequence of events that includes shadow puppets in Macy's windows, a free celebration by Redroom Theatre tonight (Saturday) from 6:00 to 7:30 in Navy's Pier Festival hall, and parades both on Argyle Street Saturday at 1:00 and the Lunar New Year parade on Wentworth in Chinatown Sunday at 1.

In a city that's besieged with financial problems, it's tempting to make some kind of comment on circuses in lieu of bread, but the fact of the matter is Chicago has an annual GDP of nearly $600 billion.  Rahm's Chinese New Year is a self-consciously shrewd move, not only to increase tourism, but to both address China as an increasingly powerful nation, and Chicago's own increasingly vibrant Chinese-American community.  (The events have already been picked up by Chinese news agency Xinhau.) Chicago is a great city, winter - especially this winter - is often cold and dark.  The Luftwerk installations are a welcome reminder of the city's resilience.

Spring Light plays with the element's neo-classical design with a series of overlays that evoke a cast-iron storefront, Renaissance-style rusticated stone, and even an Alhambra-like veneer of light. At one point it even seems to peel away the Cultural Center's facade and draw it up like someone removing a sweater over their head.  But there's a lot more than that, as you can seen in this video of excerpts (click on YouTube to see the video full-size):

Luminance has taken over the McCormick Tribune ice skating rink at Millennium Park.  As with Shift, the shadows of the skaters lose their monochrome and extend, contract and intersect in a rainbow of pastel colors. 

 

 

 

 

Also from Luftwerk:

Chicago Rediscovered in a Luminous Field, at Cloud Gate in Chicago's Millennium Park

Chicago: City of Light? Mayor Rahm Sees Luminous Future for his Town's Architecture

Image: City of Chicago

Mayor Rahm Emanuel says Chicago needs another 9 million people - at least if they go back home after they give us their money.  Yesterday he gave a speech on the importance of tourism to the city and its economy, and touted the boost in visitors from 40 million when he took office to 46 million a year today.  Now he wants to pump it to 55 million by 2020, projecting it will translate into 30,000 new jobs.

Efforts begin with stretching this year's Chinese New Year celebrations from January 31 through February 14 and from Chinatown and the Loop to throughout the city.   The expectation is that once word gets around, large numbers of citizens on the Chinese mainland will be rushing to the nearest airport - if they can find it in the smog - to get the next flight to Chicago to see those amazing New Year's festivities they've heard so much about.  As one legendary Chicago performer would say, �It could happen!�

Image: City of Chicago

The second part of Rahm's initiative kicks in later this month with the launching of �an international competition to light the city at night.  The competition will seek entries from artists, architects, planners and designers from around the world.  It will begin with the river and extend throughout the city and activate Chicago at night, allowing tourists more opportunities to enjoy the city and presenting another reason for people to visit Chicago."

I love competitions as much as the next guy, but I can't help wondering why Emanuel doesn't just pick up the phone and call in Chicago's extraordinary lighting designers.  It's not like our city is somehow bereft of striking architectural lighting.  Somewhere along the way, Rahm must have noticed the way the floodlit Wrigley Building has anchored Michigan Avenue for the better part of a century, or how the tops of such landmarks as the Hancock Center, 900 North Michigan, the Wrigley clock tower and now even the Hotel Intercontinental shine with nocturnal color that actually changes in hue throughout the year.

Images courtesy David Davies Design Studio

There's no shortage of local talent.  Perhaps the most spectacular lighting transformation of any Chicago building was John David Mooney's transformation of Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building - with David Davies as production manager - deploying 5,000 floodlights to make each of 7,200 windows an individual pixel in an enormous dynamic canvas of geometric color.  Chicago theatrical lighting design firm Schuler Shook has also had a hand in creating striking exterior illumination, including that for the original Chicago Water Tower.  Architect Helmut Jahn has worked with lighting designer Yann Kersal� to create color-shifting illuminations for his Deutsche Post building in Germany.

Rather than private buildings, however, Rahm seems to be placing an emphasis on lighting public infrastructure, which falls within the sweet spot of another Chicago designer, Tracey Dear, who rescued the grubby decrepitude of the pavilion designed by Zaha Hadid for the Burnham Plan Centennial with beautiful nighttime lighting.
Dear's debut project was actually a colorful illumination of 11 bridges across over a mile of the Chicago river. Imagine the procession of those lit bridges showing up in one of those aerial shots that have become the hallmark of Sunday/Monday night football broadcasts.

Luftwerk, Luminous Field, at Cloud Gate

Then there's Luftwerk, whose show SHIFT just closed at the Cultural Center,  and whose 2012 installation Luminous Field, transformed Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park in mesmerizing patterns of color.

In yesterday's press release, Emanuel united his two initiatives under �the Elevated Chicago� banner, and his use of the world �Elevated� leads me to something I've been proposing - to absolute silence - for years.  Wabash Avenue has traditionally been considered the problem child of the Loop because of its falling beneath the shadow of the Loop L.  Most recently, the Chicago Loop Alliance, in partnership with Civic Artworks - has been soliciting ideas for their campaign, How Would you improve Wabash Avenue?

To me, the primary answer has always been obvious.  Stop trying to ignore the L and start looking at it.   Ultimately, the Loop L is not just historic infrastructure - it's the largest piece of sculpture in Chicago.  Take the time to look at the pillars, girders, trusses and struts, and you'll find amazing, intriguing and - yes - beautiful webs of form.  It's like an enormous Richard Serra, with delicacy and detail added in.

This isn't just a tourist thing.  It's about countering the drear cold darkness of winter in the city, and bringing out the best in its architecture and infrastructure even at night.  Yes, Chicago - it's schools and government institutions - need bread, desperately, but no city survives without the circuses that give the heightened sense of life that makes people want to live there.

During the day, it's pretty easy to see the L's potential but right now at night, it's lost in the shadows, a great, unending blob of darkness that casts Wabash down into the gloom.

Let Mooney or Dear or Kersal� loose on it.  Let them light it up in all its exquisite detail, and - I guarantee you - Wabash at night will become one of Chicago's premier attractions, drawing tourists to its glow like bugs to a zapper.

A Day At (and around) the Museum(s)

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 Take the rest of the tour . . . after the break . . .