TED TALK Global – South!Grimanesa AmorósOctober 8, 2014
TED Talk Grimanesa Amoros
SESSION 5: URBAN CANVAS
By Grimanesa Amorós | Wed October 8, 2014
The work of Grimanesa Amorós highlights unexpected continuities between ancient culture, landscapes and 21st-century technology.
When it was unveiled at Issey Miyake headquarters in New York in 2011, people referred to “Uros” as “the bubbles.” It was an unusually apt nickname for Peruvian artist Grimanesa Amorós’s pulsating installation piece. Built from translucent plastic “diffusion material” illuminated by carefully wired and sequenced LED arrays, the work features glowing hemispheres that evoke the floating islands built by the Uros people of Lake Titicaca. Crafted from reeds, these islands floated on the gas bubbles released as their submerged portion decomposed.
In her subsequent work, Amorós has returned often to the theme of the Uros islands, with installations in places such as Times Square in New York and the Venice Biennale, playing with the connection between science and culture, and between technology and the past.
TED TALK Global – South!Grimanesa AmorósOctober 8, 2014