BLAINE CAMPBELL
Transcendence Engine, 2023-a, 2023
wood, acrylic mirrors, Mylar mirror film, LED lighting
13.5 m long by 3.5 m tall
Riverside Park
Transcendence Engine 2023-a is an interactive artwork by Blaine Campbell that acts as a focal point for Luminocity in Riverside Park. Measuring 13.5 meters long and 3.5 meters tall, Transcendence Engine 2023-a is a larger-than-life kaleidoscope that viewers are invited to move through and experience. As one enters the kaleidoscope structure, duplicated and mirrored reflections dance at the end of the passage. The kaleidoscopic image shifts as one’s vantage point shifts, other viewers pass in and out of the reflections, and as LED lights modulate through the specular patterns. The exterior of the structure also acts as a source of spectacle, reflecting the sky and the passageway’s surrounding environment.
Transcendence Engine 2023-a offers an otherworldly transcendent experience that brings together human and natural realms through light and reflection. Like his other public artworks, including Transient Architectures for New Tomorrows, this project explores theatrical staging, built environments, and our relationship to nature and spirituality. Evoking the notion of transcendence, or transformation from one state to another, the enveloping spectrum of light and reflection invites you to another realm. It brings together community, decentering the individual, and offers an experience of wonder and delight.
Transcendence Engine 2023-a draws on Campbell’s background in mathematics and research into Islamic geometric patterning. The reflective surface and interactive elements of this project were inspired by Indian artist Anish Kapoor’s public artwork Cloud Gate and the work of Islamic artist Monir Farmanfarmaian, known for her geometric mirror sculptures that combine the mathematical order and beauty of ancient Persian architectural motifs with the forms and patterns of hard-edged abstraction.
Artist Biography
Blaine Campbell is an Alberta-based artist working in photography, sculpture, and video. Campbell’s research interests vary widely and have included landscape theory, mediation and artifice, quantum mechanics, and mathematical patterning. A 2007 graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography, Campbell also holds degrees in mathematics from the University of Waterloo and University of Calgary. In 2015 and 2016, Campbell completed an artist residency at the TRIUMF particle and nuclear physics lab and in 2017 at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Previous versions of Transcendence Engine were presented as part of the igNIGHT Festival in Fort McMurray, Alberta, in 2019, and The Works Arts & Design Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, in 2021.
A D D I T I O N A L R E S O U R C E S
Blaine Campbell
Transcendence Engine, 2023-a, 2022-
wood, acrylic mirrors, Mylar mirror film, LED lighting
13.5 m long by 3.5 m tall
Photos: Frank Luca, 2023