Embedded Files
The Temple of Floating Compression is Glass House Art's largest tensegrity sculpture (so far?).
The main structure is permanently installed in Bombay Beach, on the shores of the Salton Sea. Instead of the central tensegrity icosahedron, it features a swing!
In 2023 went on tour: displayed at Burning Man, Arizona's regional burn Saguaro Man, and served as the temple for San Diego's Regional Burn, YOUtopia. In the touring version the central piece is suspended by the shallow pyramid, and can rotate and swing freely.
The Temple of Floating Compression is a large tensegrity sculpture inspired by MJ's father, who enjoys making small models and suggested it would be fun for us to make a large one.
More than a hundred people helped with this art in various ways - thank you! Without you all fabricating, assembling, driving, lifting, sweating, playing, donating, bleeding, crying, designing, and dreaming this would not have happened.
Our letter to our Burning Man Art Support Services liaison has some good stories about the help we needed on playa.
Floating Compression makes a fun appearance in a video about making large-scale interactive art without knowing what you are doing: https://youtu.be/ztp72HMMJDM?si=fM0jUyec7TFIvmdi&t=102
Assembly
Assembly
Putting this thing together is totally mind bending. Each time we do it a bit differently, and get totally confused along the way. If you want to follow along, here are some helpful diagrams made by Ander on our crew.
Icosahedron.pdfPrismTower.pdf
Fabrication
Fabrication
Making tensegrity sculptures is a lot of fun because it is much more dynamic and uncertain than rigid fabrication. Check out our prototyping page for more.
Google Sites
Report abuse