collaboration station

Rice's public art program looks to science as it prepares for major JamesTurrell unveiling

Artist John Sparagana with Geronimo, currently on view in the lobby of Rice'sBioScience Research Collaborative (BRC).
Photo by Tyler Rudick
Sparagana's massive photo-collage uses various pieces of software to deconstructa black-and-white image of a crowd in Times Square on the night of Osama binLaden's death.
Photo by Tyler Rudick
Dana Frankfort's open studio on the ground floor of Rice's Brockman Hall forPhysics allows passers-by to watch the artist's public art project evolve.
Photo by Tyler Rudick
Leo Villareal's Radiant Pathway located in the building's second floor cafe.
Photo by Tyler Rudick

As it awaits James Turrell's much-anticipated "skyspace" — set to open in early summer next to the Shepherd School of Music — Rice University's Public Art Program has been looking to the BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC) building as the backdrop for a string of site-specific pieces that speak to the innovative science center's interdisciplinary focus.

Designed by renowned architectural firm SOM and nestled into a corner of Rice's campus adjacent to the Texas Medical Center, the BRC was envisioned as a meeting place for people working in a variety of scientific fields to interact and share ideas. Situated at the center of building, a multi-story cylindrical core dubbed the Collaborative Hub encourages intellectual and social cross-pollination with student workstations, a large lounge and an open stairwell that promotes communication between floors.

John Sparagana's Geronimo uses computer technology to deconstruct a black-and-white image of a crowd in Times Square on the night of Osama bin Laden's death.

After opening in 2009, the BRC and its Collaborative Hub quickly gained two iconic pieces from Rice's Public Art Program, both of which attempt to define and exploit a shared common ground between visual art and science.

Leo Villareal's ultra-techie Radiant Pathway, situated on the second floor of the Hub, employs 92 LED light tubes to display changing sequences of 16 million different colors. James Surls' Walking Molecular Flower, on the patio just outside the building's main entrance, offers an atom-like interpretation of the artist's well-recognized plant forms.

In 2012, two more pieces will make their mark on the collaborative environment of the BRC.

John Sparagana's Geronimo

Late March saw the Hub's newest addition, a work by Rice art department chair John Sparagana located in the building's main lobby off University Boulevard. Titled Geronimo, this massive photo-collage uses computer technology to deconstruct a black-and-white image of a crowd in New York's Times Square on the night of Osama bin Laden's death.

Exploring that awkward terrain between art, mass communication and technology, Sparagana has digitally reprinted the picture to match the exact 10-by-16-foot dimension of two works by color field painter Morris Louis, Beta Kappa and Mu, which the artist subsequently has recreated in acrylic on either side of the print.

"John take media-driven images, slices and dices them, and repurposes them," Rice public art director Molly Hipp Hubbard said at Geronimo's unveiling. "The addition of iconic compositions, in this case by Morris Louis, places the artist in between mediums, which is what makes this work so engaging."

Dana Frankfort's new contexts

Across campus in a vacant ground-floor room of Brockman Hall for Physics, the Public Art Program has given abstract artist Dana Frankfort a large temporary studio to complete a piece that will fill a blank wall inside BRC's open staircase.

Frankfort typically centers her work around a single word painted on the canvas — a piece of text spelling out L-I-F-E or P-E-O-P-L-E. For the Collaborative Hub stairs, she is working on two pieces simultaneously and will decide which suits the space when she finishes the artworks this fall. For the BRC, she's painting around the words "think" and "test."

"These works involve a lot of free association for me," the artist told CultureMap during a studio visit. "It's about merging text with total abstraction, about creating a picture of the word rather than a sign."

As a professor of art at Boston University, Frankfort said this continuous process of painting in and around the text might often happen in plain view of her students, not unlike the very public studio set-up she maintains at Rice when she is not teaching. The technique balances the artist's deep personal considerations with a desire to remain open to any interested parties, a method very much in line with the interdisciplinary ideals of the BRC.

"In the end," she said, "a new context for the original word has emerged."

unspecified

Movie Review

Safe cracking takes center stage in new heist movie Tuner

Photo courtesy of Black Bear

Leo Woodall in Tuner.

Of all the ways that movies depict people trying to steal money and other valuables, safe cracking is among the least exciting. By design, it’s a laborious process that only those with a very certain set of skills can do. While clever editing and the right music can enhance scenes of safes being cracked, there’s a reason that the method is among the least used in heist films.

In the new film Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall) has a job and a condition that just happens to lend itself well to committing that specific crime. He works as an apprentice piano tuner for Harry (Dustin Hoffman), usually doing the hard work while Harry schmoozes the client. Niki is well-suited for the job because he has a rare condition called hyperacusis, which makes him both sensitive to loud noises and able to hear subtle things that others cannot.

When he runs across a trio of criminals trying to break open a safe at a house where he’s tuning a piano, he helps them more out of frustration than avarice. But when Harry goes into the hospital and racks up huge bills, Niki decides to join the group to make some quick money. They soon want more than he’s willing to give, and he must find a way to extricate himself from them without losing himself completely.

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher (making his narrative feature debut) and co-written by Robert Ramsey, the film has a nice pace to it despite there being relatively little action. Roher and Ramsey spend the first third or so establishing Niki, Harry, and Harry’s wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) as characters, letting the audience understand their relationships and how they interact with each other.

The time they devote to the personal storytelling pays dividends when Niki starts to descend into crime, as his divided loyalties — not to mention the danger of the thefts — insert tension into the plot. That stress is heightened even more when Niki starts a relationship with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), as getting closer to her necessitates a series of lies.

There comes a point, though, where the plot stagnates to a degree. Niki’s end goal, if he has one, is never clear, and it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before things start to fall apart. After starting strong in their character development, Roher and Ramsey take shortcuts as the film rushes toward its conclusion. This is most notable in a weird argument scene between Niki and Ruthie that comes out of nowhere and seems to serve no purpose in the story.

Woodall, who had a memorable turn in season 2 of The White Lotus, is on the cusp of breaking out, and this understated-but-compelling lead role should help him become an even bigger name in Hollywood. Hoffman has a small role, but he remains as interesting as ever despite the lack of screentime. Liu (Bottoms) is also an up-and-coming actor who should become a star with more roles like this one.

Tuner is a low-key thriller that succeeds because of the way the filmmakers approach the under-used method of robbery. Even if it doesn’t quite reach its potential, the film maintains a high quality throughout thanks to its storytelling and acting.

---

Tuner is now playing in theaters.

movies film