Orgone reef An installation by Philip Beesley at the Architecture 2 Gallery University of Manitoba January 20-February 13, 2003
o rgone Reef is an extremely lightweight expanded mesh- work, a dense interlinking matrix made of thousands of pieces manufactured by a computer-controlled laser cutter. The project probes the possibilities of combining artificial and natural processes to form a hybrid ecology. Orgone Reef is a technical exercise in construction and fabrication. The project relates to geotextiles, a new class of materials used for reinforcing landscapes and buildings. A minimal amount of raw material is expanded to form a network forming a large, porous volume. This structure acts as an artificial reef that could support a turf-like surface of natural material. The elements of this construction have been fabricated using rapid-prototyping equipment. Current manufacturing associations are with Roylco, a plastic toy manufacturer in Waterloo assisting with engineering and production planning, and MIT’s Media Lab, the producer of ‘cricket’microprocessors for Lego. Individual elements can be produced at low cost and quick cycles of refinement, supporting
highly efficient industrial design. The small scale of production suggests the possibility of a cottage-industry based economy. The structure has active qualities that hover and vibrate in response to air currents.Visually, it dissolves into an oscillating field. Like Pitcher Plants and Venus Fly Traps, the details of this structure are designed to catch and hold the things that they contact, collecting and digesting material and, in effect, building themselves, without our interference. One can contextualize this work in the Romantic tradition of working with forces beyond human control. Nineteenth and twentieth-century poetic and religious writings often reveal uncanny mixtures of anxiety and hope that might come from intervening in nature.The project title Orgone Reef is derived from this tradition — orgone was coined by Wilhelm Reich, a psychologist working alongside Freud, to suggest a subtle life force encircling the world. Reich, whose work was tinged by mystic obsession, saw the world as an intelligent, evolving entity. From a historical perspective his visions offer a poignant alternative to the Modern version of progress.
Philip Beesley is an artist and professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo. His geotextile sculptures combine natural environments and artificial technologies.
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O n S ite review
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I ssue 9 2003
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