Swirl Lesson Plan
ABOUT SWIRL AND THE ARTIST
The idea of having an electronic installation in Cowles Commons came about several years ago, in 2008, during the planning of Nollen Plaza’s transformation into what would become Cowles Commons. Artist Jim Campbell was involved from the start on a design team with Des Moines-area landscape architect Ken Smith. Campbell knew he wanted to incorporate electronic media and have the space be interactive: plenty of seating to encourage togetherness, water spouts with their own lighting for playfulness – even the Crusoe Umbrella settled here! Finally in 2015, the $1.5 million Swirl began its permanent installation over several weeks in the large, open design of Cowles Commons. As dusk arrives and the sky ventures into darkness, Swirl becomes an “illuminated nightscape” of more than 8,000 LEDs dashing around 18 loops wound around nine 30-foot long poles.
Prior to his joining the design team for the Commons, Jim Campbell’s name was brought up by Des Moines Art Center Director Jeff Fleming, who was familiar with the San Francisco-based artist after curating his work over 20 years ago at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, N.C. Jim Campbell started his electrifying artwork back in the 1980s with video art. In the ‘90s, he transitioned into “electronic sculpture and then LED matrix works that examined the nature of motion and optics.” Campbell has installations nationally and internationally, including a past LED showing on a 108-story Hong Kong skyscraper.
-Adapted from: Morain, M. (2015, December 21). Light art flickers to life downtown. Des Moines Register.
VOCABULARY
- LED: light-emitting diode: a semiconductor diode that produces light approximately 90% more efficiently than incandescent bulbs.
- Diode: a device, like a semiconductor, that controls the direction of current-flow towards one direction.
- Installation art: large three-dimensional artwork, sometimes mixed-media, which is constructed in the space where it is exhibited. Can be site-specific and designed to transform or have a relationship with its space.
