SPECIMENS OF TIME, BURN

Specimens of Time: Burn is a data-driven sculpture that captures the visceral essence of the Pacific Northwest rainforests' pristine beauty while dynamically reflecting real-time changes driven by rising temperatures. Constructed with translucent optical materials, organic elements sourced from nature, synthetic components, projected light, and real-time data, the artwork preserves the sensory experience of this irreplaceable landscape while emphasizing the ecological shifts it currently faces.

Custom software, developed in collaboration with computer scientist Mihai Jalobeanu, processes real-time temperature data from 8 NOAA weather stations on the Olympic Peninsula, comparing current readings with 20 years of historical averages. When temperatures exceed historical norms, these anomalies are visualized in red through dynamic parametric video projections. The visuals adapt in real-time, evolving to reflect the warming trends and ecological changes, with warmer states rendered in vivid reds and oranges.

High-resolution projectors integrated seamlessly with the sculpture's optical materials, scattering and diffracting light to create a multidimensional, immersive experience. This interplay of light, motion, and environmental data translates the complex impacts of climate change into an evocative sensory narrative, allowing viewers to emotionally connect with the unfolding story of a threatened landscape.

Specimens of Time: Burn was created as part of Maja Petric’s solo exhibition at The Vestibule gallery in Seattle, WA, USA.

Curatorial Statement by Kascha Semonovic, The Vestibule

Specimens of Time is the eighth in our 2024-2025 series, Time is the Subject. All the artists showing this year took time as their subject or considered the human subject in relation to time. By working in light, Petric takes on both.

“…Light is a sort of concept that walks among appearances; it does not have a subjective existence, save when it becomes for us. Light does not know the world, but I see the world thanks to light.” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Like scent and taste, light undercuts our reflective cognition. We live at the mercy of light. Daylight wakes us, catching us at the transition from passive to active, calling us into consciousness without our consent. In the artwork, light takes advantage of our attention to it, awakening us into awareness of the data and the place from which it comes.

In a world where we are constantly thinking about climate data, these sculptures and installation offer a moment to feel the data. Data visualization focuses on offering ways to clarify and understand data. This work, however, uses data as a medium to draw out an emotional response to the content.

Having caught the viewer with light, Petric’s pieces evoke natural places —the deep rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, the Antarctic. Petric speaks of showing the sublime in nature. The artwork, however, is beautiful.

Beauty always places us in a moral dilemma. We must ask ourselves how we have been drawn in by the beauty, whether we ought to have been drawn in, whether we have the right to withdraw from the political into the beautiful.

The end, the completion, of this work should be action. Beauty and light have caught our attention to the world beyond the work. In order to remain sublime, these places must remain unvisited and untouched, like the materials trapped within the installation. But we might be brave and let ourselves feel their loss — enough that we feel impelled to act.

Materials: Optical filters, reflective materials, projectors, computer, custom software, metal hardware
Dimensions: 32 x 42 x 32 in / 81.3 x 106.5 x 81.3 cm
Year: 2024