Art world luminary Leo Villareal is having another Bay Area moment. See: The reprise of his now-permanent Bay Lights thanks to $4 million from Caltrans and Illuminate the Arts, a solo exhibition at Fused Space that runs through March 11, and now a shiny new addition to the Exploratorium in his "Buckyball."
Lighting up in surprising computer generated sequences and 16 million distinct colors, 4,500 LED nodes shine from Villareal's 25-foot hexagonal ball, a structure inspired by architect Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes.
“I have always loved the Exploratorium as a space for open-ended discovery. The combination of multiple disciplines is powerful,” said Villareal. “I am an artist first, but my work could not exist without LED technology, advanced fabrication methods, and the custom software that I have been developing over 10 years.”
In this video of the piece as it appeared in 2013 at Madison Square Park in New York, please embrace the elevator music from the 1981 album Computer World by Kraftwerk: "Computer Love, Computer World and Computer World Part 2."
Buckyball will be on display at the Exploratorium through September 11.
Related: Let There Be Bay Lights: Bridge Installation To Return In A Flash