ORB Video Demo from James Sears on Vimeo.
Stream or download the ITP thesis presentation of ultraORB
Ron Sears was born in Jerseyville, Illinois, on July 21, 1956. He
was the second child of a U.S. Army Air Corps soldier, who met and
married Ron's mother in Berlin during World War II. Growing up in a
small town, he made his mark as a high school auto shop ace, turning a
1968 Camaro into a thing of beauty and the envy of all street racers in
the area. After attending college, he joined his family business, Sears
Wholesale, but realized this was not for him.
He shortly discovered the call of the road, long distance trucking, and again made his mark by being one of the most successful owner-operators in the entire area. Missing his wife and young son, he sold his truck and was drawn into organic farming as a way to bring attention to the mid-west area what he had learned on the coasts--conventional agriculture was not the best way to produce food for a healthy population. This segued into a career as the director of operations at one of St. Louis County's premier compost centers. After spending many years there, Ron decided to leave and pursue a life-long dream--to contribute to the art community through his large scale and thoughtful pieces of sculpture
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City Streets, Northern Lights is an exploration of the interplay between all things urban and natural -- massive, yet delicate.
Created of powder coated steel and aluminum, cast iron, glass, and microprocessor controlled LED lighting and weighing in at over five hundred pounds, the piece impresses viewers with a combination of scale and grace.
A massive pedestal remains seemingly glued to the Earth as a shimmering light display patterned after the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, as the phenomenon is commonly known, floats overhead.
Inspired by the power of gravity, nature's graceful beauty, and the human energy of the urban world,
City Streets, Northern Lights is an exciting debut effort by artist Ron Sears and is currently installed
in New York University's Kimmel Center for Student Life, located at
60 Washington Sqare S, New York, NY.
City Streets, Northern Lights
2006
Ron Sears
in collaboration with
James Nick Sears and Anne Hong
Powder Coated Steel and Aluminum; Cast Iron; Glass; Microprocessor Controlled LED Lighting
Dimensions: 95"(241cm) H x 45"(114cm) W x 96"(244cm) D
Weight: 502 lbs(228 kg)
Inspired by a desire to push persistence of vision displays into the third dimension, The Orb is an attempt to bridge the worlds of art and design by creating a beautiful object of inherent interest that also functions as a platform for display, whether artistic or information-oriented.
As such, The Orb is a step toward reestablishing the relevance of the globe as spherical object for increasing viewers' awareness and perspective on issues of worldwide significance, following in the footsteps of Buckminster Fuller's Geoscope proposal in 1962, which called for a 200 foot diameter sphere covered with ten million computer-controlled light sources to be suspended over the East River in full view of the United Nations.
By leveraging the efficiencies of persistence of vision, The Orb is able to produce about one quarter of one percent of the resolution of the Geoscope with less than one thousandth of one percent of the physical light sources. This efficiency will allow future iterations both to add full depth to the display and increase in scale.
Download a video of The Orb in action (Quicktime, 720p, 98MB, 1:00).
The Orb featured at TED2007 in Monterey, CA. See it.
Read more about The Orb at orb.jamesnsears.com.
The Orb
2006
Ron Sears
James Nick Sears
Steel; Acrylic; Electromechanical Machinery; Microprocessor Controlled LED Lighting
Dimensions: 31"(79cm) H x 13.5"(34cm) W x 16.5"(42cm) D
Weight: 75 lbs(34kg)
Download in HD (Quicktime, 720p, 98MB, 1:00).