SpotLight On LED tree

admin — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:53:16 +0000

2008: Burning Man Arts Festival, the American Dream, and 16′ tall tree.

The festival’s theme, “The American Dream”, was set for 2008. After attending previous Burning Man Arts Festivals, ANIMUS founder, Preston Dane and his team of artists decided to return with their first large-scale artwork– a strong, 16′ tall resemblance of a Weeping Willow tree. “We chose a tree because we felt it best conveyed our belief that there is no ‘ overriding ‘ American Dream. There are millions of independent dreamers, dreaming his or her own American Dream.”
Funding was provided through individual donations. For twenty dollars, a contributor could express his or her vision of the American Dream on individually-crafted tree leaves. “From a distance you only saw the beauty of the tree,”Dane explains, “but when you approached it, you saw that on each leaf was written someone’s American Dream… the collective made the whole.”

Enlightening the theme by going in a different direction…

Dane observed that EL-Wire was the predominant source of lighting at night during past festivals, so he and his fellow artists wanted to go in a different direction. They knew that fibber optics would provide a variance of colour and mimic the “weeping”, cascading effects so characteristic of Weeping Willow trees.

Arbour Animus, meaning Spirited, or Courageous Tree, is a 16-foot-tall, multimedia, fully-interactive, artistic representation of an American Willow tree, evoking the theme of the American Dream. It was displayed at two major art festivals during the summer and fall of 2008. Rather than look to partisan issues, Arbour Animus focuses on the core values that made this country great when it was founded, and continue to make it great today. Its message is simple: that the American Dream is made up of every individual American dreaming his or her own dream, and the collective making up the whole.

How it works:

The leaves of our tree come in five colours: two greens, two blues, and a purple hue. From a distance, Arbour Animus is a fluttering mirage of colour, vivid tints and bright tones. Within a closer range, you see that on the leaves black & white images appear, each an iconic representation of the American Dream. One leaf might feature Lady Liberty. Another, a section of the Constitution. On another, Madonna. A Walt Whitman quote. The picture of a child. Her hand-drawn sketch. Challenging images will also appear: a proud slave-trader, who once lived his own version of the American Dream; a New York City cab driver, come to make a better life for himself; an immigrant, detained; an excerpt of the Bill of Rights: the 2nd Amendment’s Right to Bear Arms.

The trunk of this gentle giant is a combination of figurative painting and sculpture. Forms, hands, faces, arms morph in and out of the wood. The roots of the tree reach out in the shape of human limbs, and also form a seating platform for the viewer to recline against. The viewer merges with the figures, evoking the visual impression that all are bound to one another, each individual dreaming one of the leaves of the tree. Arbour Animus also features extensive LED and fibber-optic lighting in the vines that reach out over the participant in an embracing canopy of light and form. Bright white twinkling LED lights cascades down over the viewer, who at night is able walk between the foliage of light and dreams, basking in their luminosity.

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SpotLight On LED tree