Modern Management Methods
Modern Management Methods is an installation that focusses on the United Nations HQ and casts its architecture in an electromagnetic light.
Created for Caitlin Blanchfield and Farzin Lotfi-Jam
'Modern Management Methods' at The Shed, NY, 2019
'Modern Management Methods' by Caitlin Blanchfield & Farzin Lotfi-Jam
'Modern Management Methods' installation at The Shed, NY, 2019
Scanned documents from the UN HQ in New York
Capabilities
Technology
- Experience Design
- Software Engineering
- Processing p5
- Arduino
- Circuit Design
- Fabrication
Opportunity
Writer-editore Caitlin Blanchfield and architect, Farzin Lotfi-Jam approached Superbright to help design and build an interactive installation (inspired by their 2019 book) that would display the x-ray and the archive—paired forms of modernist media— a rendering of the United Nations Headquarters, a building built in 1951 by Harrison & Abramovitz.
Modern Management Methods asks how the value of a building is produced through instruments of expertise, management ideologies, and historical narratives, by focussing on the HQ since its post 9/11 renovation.
The installation was premiered at the inaugural Open Call exhibition at The Shed in New York City.
Solution
Superbright designed & fabricated an installation where each document is displayed on two 25 feet horizontal custom metal enclosures as individual lightboxes. A custom control system was built to manage each lightbox independently, allowing the grid to be programmed to create animation with which to guide visitors through the research by highlighting different documents on the panels.
Output
The final display contained over 100K LEDs, controlled by a custom control system housed within a fabricated metal installation, which played a light animation sequence across the grid of documents in 15 minutes cycles. It was installed at The Shed at the inaugural Open Call exhibition in 2019.
Press
September, 2019
Modern Management Methods shines a literal light through the U.N. Headquarters
Credits
- Exhibition Curators and Designers
- Caitlin Blanchfield and Farzin Lotfi-Jam
- Lighting Creative Development
- Superbright
- Lighting Design
- Igal Nassima
- Preservation Consultants
- Andre Jauregui and Halley Ramos, SOE Studio
- Radiologist
- David Yitzhakov