Boston – Seaport debuts new public art from within the Boston community for the inaugural year of its Design Seaport program, a biennial competition that gives local design professionals a special opportunity to showcase their work in the neighborhood.
Two exuberant, larger than life installations by emerging area design teams, Teltta and Supernormal, are now on display, inviting all who visit Seaport this winter to be immersed in exciting, shared experiences.
Presented by WS Development and OverUnder, with support from the Boston Society of Architects, the Mayor’s Office for New Urban Mechanics, and the Boston Art Commission, Design Seaport features two unique interactive works that visually shift with the activity of its surroundings. Through the influence of light or distance, the works create an inclusive connection with the neighborhood.
Seaport has worked with an array of local and international artists to bring eleven distinct public art installations to the district since 2017. The works of Teltta and Supernormal follow the recent uplifting installation by Jon Burgerman and join a collection of existing commissioned works, such as Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation I), 1970, Frank Stella’s mural reproduction of his seminal painting, and Air Sea Land, a series of seven exclusive sculptures by renowned Spanish artist Okuda San Miguel. Both works have become signature focal points along Seaport Boulevard.
Following its open call for entries on the theme of finding light in darkness, the Design Seaport jury selected local design teams, Supernormal and Teltta, to create playful, large-scale installations that represent moments of joy with the hope to lift spirits this season. I’m for You (User Friendly) by Supernormal is on display in the One Seaport courtyard (60 Seaport Boulevard Boston MA) and WALLESSNESS by Teltta is located on Seaport Common, now through February 28, 2021; two additional installations created by two other teams will debut in Spring 2021 in Seaport.
“As Seaport continues to bring inspiring public art to the neighborhood, supporting our local community is a top priority. Through Design Seaport, emerging local design professionals showcase their work in a big and meaningful way, while Seaport residents, employees and visitors can engage in a truly special, visual experience. The works of Teltta and Supernormal are spectacular and we hope they will luminate our public spaces with feelings of joy and togetherness this winter,” says Karen Urosevich, Senior Vice President of Studio, WS Development.
“Greater Boston’s wealth of academic and professional institutions has made the city an engine for design innovation. Some of the world’s most outstanding talent can be found right here in Boston, and Design Seaport has provided a wonderful platform for such creatives to test their ideas in a public venue. The first Design Seaport participants, Supernormal and Teltta, bring a range of material innovation and design excellence not to mention a remarkable energy to this inaugural program,” says Chris Grimley, Principal, OverUnder.
I’m for You (User Friendly)
Design Team: Supernormal
Located at One Seaport
I’m for You (User Friendly)
Photo Courtesy of Boston Seaport by WS Development
I’m for You (User Friendly) explores physical and digital closeness in the public realm in a year characterized by social distancing, systemic loneliness and political polarization. The work, situated in the One Seaport courtyard, presents itself in two parts. A soft, corporeal form dubbed “the Sloucher” by its designers, holds a silent conversation with a generic box that uses projection to continuously transform for its viewers. The changing surface of the box is created using artificial intelligence to generate an imagined fragment of Boston’s Seaport that alternately mimics, compliments and challenges its surroundings.
The interactive piece will occupy public space during the shortest, coldest days of the year. It is designed to be most alive, engaging, and visible during the darkest and longest nights, when light is most scarce. I’m for You (User Friendly) is a reflection on real and imagined relationships between places, people, and their machines in a time of isolation.
WALLESSNESS
Design Team: Teltta
Located on Seaport Common
WALLESSNESS
Photo Courtesy of Boston Seaport by WS Development
WALLESSNESS, now on display on Seaport Common, dematerializes the wall by substituting masonry blocks with lightweight structural modules made by hand braiding heat-activated carbon fiber strands together with fluorescent and retro-reflective fibers. Each fiber supports the project in different ways: the carbon fibers bear the structural loads, the fluorescent fibers increase visual legibility, and the retro-reflective fibers promote an interactive dialogue with the project as flash photography from mobile devices illuminate those threads spectacularly and unexpectedly. Laced together, the diverse threads work in tandem; they are literally cut from the same cloth. WALLESSNESS is an anagram for lawlessness and transfigures a typology of exclusion and division into one of inclusion and connection.
