Introducing BMW Open Work artist Madeline Hollander
The American artist discusses cycling global clocks, choreography and the importance of collaboration in thinking about alternative energy resources ahead of BMW Open Work 2020
The American artist discusses cycling global clocks, choreography and the importance of collaboration in thinking about alternative energy resources ahead of BMW Open Work 2020
Speaking from her studio in New York, Madeline Hollander introduces her practice and the multi disciplinary commission which she is creating for BMW Open Work 2020. Surrounded by car head and tail lights and a storyboard of light settings, Hollander discusses how the three-part project emerged from her dialogue with BMW’s sustainability department and an investigation into the automatic adaptive system of BMW headlights.
The project continues the artist’s recent research into traffic patterns and working without human actors to depict unseen systems or processes. The first phase of the project is a digital platform www.sunrisesunsets.world which functions as a precursor to the site-specific installation and follows the earth’s natural choreography as it transitions from day into night. Viewers will be invited to interact with a global map composed of digital headlights, lightening and darkening in relation to the time of day in each location. While exploring the map and zooming into each headlight, users will be able to experience and tune in, into live-traffic cams streaming images from intersections in major cities around the globe. Each headlight, placed on different geographical location will allow visitors to remotely travel and follow local traffic movements and rhythms.
The second part of the project sees Hollander adorn a fleet of unique BMW i3 electric with a looping text that reads ‘TOMORROW WILL BE NOTHING LIKE TODAY WILL BE NOTHING LIKE TOMORROW.’ The phrase, recurrent across Hollander’s work, will be visible on all BMW i3 electric cars travelling across London that will be used to transport Frieze Week guests. Employing urban mobility, this intervention will reiterate Sunrise/Sunset’s investigation of perpetual loops, energy cycles and renewable power.
As the final and central component of the commission, the site-specific installation will premiere during Frieze Los Angeles 2021. Composed of hundreds of recycled BMW LED headlights, the installation will create a networked map choreographed by the sunsets and sunrises across the globe: “The earth travels 1.6 million miles every day, and that distance is real” Hollander says, “and it is looking at how the cosmos really play into the choreography of our every day life”
The digital platform Sunrise/Sunset is now live, please visit: www.sunrisesunsets.world
About the Partnership
Further information on BMW Open Work here.
