mel chin

  • Unmoored

    Unmoored

    Unmoored

    2018

    Digital app for a mixed reality experience

    Exhibited in Times Square, NYC, from July 11th to September 5th, 2018

    Unmoored Movie

    Unmoored explores a potential future of melting ice caps and rising oceans filling Times Square. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, Unmoored allows guests to explore a submerged Times Square in mixed reality, to use their mobile phones to access an augmented reality experience.

    Guests who look up in Times Square experience an incoming flotilla of boats of all kinds, making their way around existing buildings into the square — eventually creating a nautical traffic jam above. Boat age in the air; occasionally bumping into each other while waves break the silence of a surreal floating canopy of hulls. Apparitions appear, based on living species of plankton, and seem to seek connection to the human audience.

    Collaborators:

    Artist: Mel Chin

    Producer: Microsoft / Listen

    App Developer: Zengalt

    Digital Asset creation:

    Krista Albert, Justin Coo, Joe Gamble, Dallas Moore

    Some models were created by Marine Microalgae Research Associates LLC, using National Science Foundation funding (Biological Oceanography program grant OCE-1155663 awarded to Jeffrey W. Krause), and are therefore in the Public Domain.

    Sound:

    Kurt Feldman, Listen

    Scientific Research:

    Jeanette Yen, Dave Haffner

    Mel Chin Studio liaison and support:

    Amanda Wiles, Audrey Zhuoer Liu, Dallas Moore

    UNC Asheville digital asset prototypes:

    Forest Gamble, Zach Farber, Mario Zigante, Maddie Pesce, Sam Burke, Klesa Colgrove, Wes Stroupe

    Special thanks to Stanislav Bulavin of Zengalt and Sarah Ibrahim and Steve Milton of Listen

  • Operation Paydirt/Fundred Dollar Bill Project

    Operation Paydirt/Fundred Dollar Bill Project


    2006-ongoing

    Operation Paydirt is an artist-initiated project inviting children, families and communities to imagine, express and actualize a future free of childhood lead-poisoning. Central to Operation Paydirt is the Fundred Dollar Bill Project, a creative campaign advancing public education and community engagement through the creation and collection of Fundreds – original, hand-drawn interpretations of $100 bills. Fundreds represent the tangible voices of millions speaking to those with the power to end this national problem. The goal is to exchange the value of informed public voice into real resources to leverage 100% prevention.

    Since 2006, Operation Paydirt’s initiatives have proven effective in engaging communities in the potential for change. This methodology can further underpin the work of the larger lead poisoning prevention movement by developing a massive citizen voice. Now, with the support of A Blade of Grass, a foundation that nurtures socially engaged art, Operation Paydirt is offering this creative momentum to support those with the knowledge and power to influence change towards lead poisoning prevention. MIT’s Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) is partnering with Operation Paydirt to create the space for a convening of campaign partners to co-create communications and movement-building strategies. The partnership with CoLab will facilitate the interchange of knowledge and resources between MIT and community networks. Moving forward, Los Angeles based Healthy Homes Collaborative is invested as an advising partner. Conversations with lead poisoning prevention experts are evolving to further anchor this national dialogue.

    See operationpaydirt.org for the latest information.

  • Safehouse

    Safehouse


    2008-2010
    existing house, stainless steel, steel, wood, plywood, Gatorboard ®, lead-encapsulation paint, automotive body and paint finishes, 12,000 brass thumbtacks, 6,000 unique hand-drawn Fundred Dollar Bills.
    Overall size: 18 x 22 x 40 feet, interior walls are 10 1/2 feet in height

    Safehouse     is a sculptural icon of Operation Paydirt in New Orleans’ flood-wrecked and lead-laden neighborhood of St. Roch. Safehouse is a former residential dwelling, its front façade transformed into an operable 10-foot-in-diameter bank-vault door, complete with a rotary combination lock. Safehouse was a Fundred gathering and drawing space and served as Operation Paydirt Headquarters in New Orleans; thousands of Fundreds, drawn by Louisiana school children, were displayed inside.



  • Recolecciones

    Recolecciones


    1997-2006
    mixed media (34 projects, over 200 objects)
    Artworks inserted into and around the infrastructure of the entire library

    Download a pdf guide to Recolecciones.

    From City of San Jose Public Art website:

    “Recolecciones” is the Spanish word for “recollections” — as in “memories.” It also means “harvests” or “gatherings.” The Latin root “LECT-” from which “recolecciones” derives means both “to gather” and “to read”: the ancient Romans seem to have envisioned reading as a process of gathering up scattered bits of information (the letters of the alphabet) and combining them into meaningful sequences. Readers are thus gatherers, harvesters. The library is a place where people come together to recall and reformulate their common heritage, a place designed for “re-col-lection,” that is, etymologically, “reading or harvesting again together.” The library’s public art collection is primarily designed to support this function.

    As part of the City’s ongoing commitment to the arts, the San José Public Art Program commissioned Mel Chin to create an artwork integrated into the new Martin Luther King Jr. Library. The 33 artworks, sited throughout the library, are designed to pay homage to the Library’s book collections. These sculptural insertions are designed to provoke your interest and curiosity, encouraging exploration and circulation throughout the Library. All of the artworks are sited to surprise you and add to your sense of mystery and wonder. They are site-specific, their adjacency imbuing the piece with additional layers of meaning.

    The artworks vary from large and dramatic statements to intimate and subtle insertions that may require numerous visits to discover. The Recolecciones artworks include functional installations such as chairs, tables and shelves, as well as wall paneling, sculptural ceilings, curious light projections, and more traditional formal sculpture. Some of the concepts are invested with a sense of humor, while others are designed to encourage contemplation.

    Conceptual Acknowledgments:

    Lead Team: Mel Chin, Haun Saussy, Robert Batchelor, and James Millar

    Other contributors to the conceptualizations of the artworks include over 100 San Jose community members: San Jose City and University librarians; students of San Jose State University and Cooper Union School of Art.

    San Jose State University Team: Wendy Angel, Ed Clapp, Francesca Davis, Russell Fan, Carolyn Gerstman, Janet Kang, David Kempkin, Rachel Lazo, Sheila Malone, Masako Miki, Inna Razumova, Rob Spain, Scott Trimball, John Zimmerman, Minging Zhou

    Cooper Union School of Art Team: Amelia Bauer, Alejandro Cardenas, Robert de Saint Phalle, Jorge Elbrecht, Nina Gallant, Aimee Genell, Francis Kerrigan, Sam Kusack, Alexander Monachino, Sarah Morgan, Michael Vahrenwald, Allyson Vieira, Donald Tobias Wong

    Concept contribution for specific artworks: Alejandro Cardenas, Amelia Bauer, Mary Rubin, Barron Brown, Russell Fan, Robert de Saint Phalle, Biblioteca Latinoamericana Community

    For more information, visit the Recolecciones archive on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library website.

    details:

    Beethoven’s Inner Ear

    Fiction/Fiction

    Tectonic Tables

    Sour Grapes

    Wise Cracks

    Golden Gate

    Skeptacle

    Self Help Mirror

    Reflecting Pools (above: 8th floor, below: 3rd floor)

  • WMD

    WMD


    2005
    singlewide trailer frame, 92 Ford Taurus® engine and split chassis, plywood, wood, rubber, roofing material, plastic, vinyl siding, singlewide trailer accessories
    10 x 71 x 8 feet

    Full scale Replica of a U.S. Peacekeeper nuclear missile remade as a Warehouse of Mass Distribution with shelving to hold food and clothing. Design influences were the singlewide trailer, desert storm camouflage, and the U.S. presentation of a case for war at the U.N. Made with students at East Tennessee State University.


  • QWERTY Courbet

    QWERTY Courbet


    2001
    laser-cut steel, modified keyboard, CPU, monitor, software, bronze, velvet
    installed in a wall, double-sided: keyboard installation: 38 x 38 inches, monitor/curtain installation: 20 x 20 inches

    The keyboard was the origin of this dream. A version of Courbet’s “L’origine du monde” to be touched…but you will be “on the record.”
    The functional keyboard, imbedded in a wall…based on a well-known source….records your input behind a red velvet curtain.