Idea Echos
When grand visions that involve the built environment die, a lot of detritus is left behind. Most of this material ends up in the trash; this installation is a ‘second life’ for two pieces from that stream of debris. These ‘re-rendered renderings’ are an attempt to capture ‘idea echos’ of a proposal to create here in Sacramento what would have been the largest residential building complex on the west coast – and in so doing examine the now faint echos of optimism, courage and ambition embodied in this form.
Blue Field Revision
A particular shade of blue is associated because of a common tape with ‘masking’. “Big ideas’ die not from a ‘bang’ but from a ‘thousand cuts’; here represented by many pieces of blue tape which over some unknown time, placed by unknown hands, gradually obscured the ‘developer vision’ until it became a ‘blue field’. Renderings are a key tool in taking ‘visions’ to ‘reality’ – a long and twisting path even in the best of circumstances. This picture was originally intended at a tool to make a particular Big Idea seem real enough to inspire people to commit time and money to it. The dimming of that idea is portrayed as a process of ‘masking’ which continued until all that is left is an ‘Idea Echo’. This remnant is still with us – able to stirs our collective memory of a time in Sacramento that was not very long ago but very different from today.