Installation of Sui generis begins this week in the Windows Room (3rd floor) at Palmer Commons (hours: 7:30 am-11pm Mon-Sat). The exhibition is open now through April 13th, 2007.
Sui generis is a large-scale tectonic, systems-based installation designed to take into account related conceptual attributes of a chapel, scientific laboratory, carnival, and children’s nursery. Sui generis offers a cognitive retreat, a place for reflection, and a chance to come into close physical proximity with other organisms and ourselves. The installation will develop to encompass different attributes and further articulation over the duration of the exhibition.
In order to experience the installation, visitors will be invited to raise their heads through one of the two holes in the floor underneath. When inhabiting the interior, the two viewers will be confronted not only with the shadowscape, but also with each other. As the architecture is elusive in its source, it invites diverse interpretations–a carnival sideshow, a Zen garden, a Victorian greenhouse, a virus, or perhaps even a flower awaiting pollination.
The title Sui generis indicates an idea, an entity or a reality that cannot be included in a wider concept. In intellectual property law, exclusive rights are granted for the creation and development of plant breeds, databases and traditional knowledge (among others) to reflect that the subject matter is a product of the intellect.
For more background, explore a database of terms and concepts associated with the design of Sui generis as well as documentation of the construction process.
In his work, Gabriel Harp recombines visual art and life science (epistemology) through the processes of critical design and network entrepreneurship. Often working at the interfaces of evolutionary biology, bioinformatics, education, and visual culture, his work investigates the roles of metaphors in education, science and policy and the primacy of visual signals in the discourse surrounding genomics and biotechnology. Collaborating with Zack Denfeld and others, Gabriel is currently developing a visual map of patent claims on the human genome.
