Dangly Trek mosaic art

Artist Devorah Sperber's "Mirror Universe" show opened last week at Caren Golden Fine Art in New York -- it features giant pixellated mosaics of scenes from the Star Trek franchise, including this "mid-transporter-beam" looking Kirk curtain:
For some of the pieces, Sperber used spools of thread to create photomosaics of Trek characters. A 47 x 37.5 x 60-inch portrait of Spock took 1,200 spools to make; a stainless steel ball is required to see the piece right side up. Sperber also threaded together TNG's Holodeck (using 9,600 spools) and the Enterprise bridge (5,822 spools).

To re-create the look of being beamed up, Sperber used semi-translucent beads to thread the standing characters into shape. The image of Captain Kirk (pictured) uses 25,000 plastic beads strung onto monofilament. Link (via Wonderland)

[#1 posted by JamesMason , March 24, 2008 7:41 AM]

If the transporter effect bead curtain were available for sale (with Kirk and/or Spock) at a reasonable price, I would buy one.

The original sounds like it took several weeks to construct....

Very, very cool.

[#2 posted by Jeff , March 24, 2008 8:29 AM]

I could see these art pieces made at a reasonable price. I have a question: does the artist need permission from the company that holds the Trek Trade Mark.

[#3 posted by Argon , March 24, 2008 8:52 AM]

Awesome. Indeed, there's a market opportunity for the first one who builds an automated color-selecting bead threading robot. Send in a photo and get your custom-made curtain, something like that.

...I wonder how it would look like if we took this idea one step further, if the beads formed a surface in a three-dimensional voxel space. (There already are 3d-hanging sculptures like this -I've seen a ship, I think- but the objects were sparsely distributed, and not in color.)

[#4 posted by Crunchbird , March 24, 2008 9:13 AM]

I saw another "spools of thread as pixels" work by this artist installed in a corporate lobby in Arlington, VA a couple of years ago. This one was a huge Monet Waterlilies painting, with convex mirrors installed across the lobby to capture the image's reflection. Definitely an impressive visual object, and it made me think a bit about the ideas she's trying to explore, but the technique (which is very computer-driven) does come across as a little bit sterile in an "art as science problem" kind of way.

[#5 posted by consideredopinion , March 24, 2008 12:22 PM]

Now, for the "Kirk Rampant" version, sans torn shirt - and you've got yourself a real winner. :-)

[#6 posted by Chris L , March 24, 2008 2:31 PM]

@Crunchbird: so Chuck Close is sterile? Speaking of which, a Close portrait would be really cool, in a meta sort of way.

[#7 posted by bsdmd , March 24, 2008 4:42 PM]

Hi, I just saw this show in NYC last weekend. It was impressive in person. The artist has been doing pixelated pieces for years now. FYI all of these pieces are for sale thru the gallery: [e-mail]