WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.625 Usually I like working in my shop, 00:00:02.625 --> 00:00:06.958 but when it's raining and the driveway outside turns into a river, 00:00:06.958 --> 00:00:08.998 then I just love it. 00:00:08.998 --> 00:00:12.329 And I'll cut some wood and drill some holes and watch the water, 00:00:12.329 --> 00:00:15.208 and maybe I'll have to walk around and look for washers. 00:00:15.208 --> 00:00:18.140 You have no idea how much time I spend. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:18.140 --> 00:00:20.167 This is the "Double Raindrop." 00:00:20.167 --> 00:00:23.292 Of all my sculptures, it's the most talkative. 00:00:28.430 --> 00:00:31.442 It adds together the interference pattern 00:00:31.442 --> 00:00:34.721 from two raindrops that land near each other. 00:00:34.721 --> 00:00:39.868 Instead of expanding circles, they're expanding hexagons. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:44.945 --> 00:00:49.229 All the sculptures move by mechanical means. 00:00:54.890 --> 00:00:59.125 Do you see how there's three peaks to the yellow sine wave? 00:00:59.125 --> 00:01:05.225 Right here I'm adding a sine wave with four peaks and turning it on. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:20.644 --> 00:01:24.110 Eight hundred two-liter soda bottles -- 00:01:24.110 --> 00:01:25.854 oh yea. 00:01:25.854 --> 00:01:28.090 (Laughter) 00:01:38.259 --> 00:01:41.917 Four hundred aluminum cans. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:44.517 --> 00:01:47.277 Tule is a reed that's native to California, 00:01:47.277 --> 00:01:52.543 and the best thing about working with it is that it smells just delicious. 00:02:05.835 --> 00:02:08.783 A single drop of rain 00:02:08.783 --> 00:02:11.298 increasing amplitude. 00:02:32.883 --> 00:02:38.109 The spiral eddy that trails a paddle on a rafting trip. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:48.263 --> 00:02:51.138 This adds together four different waves. 00:02:51.138 --> 00:02:54.059 And here I'm going to pull out the double wavelengths 00:02:54.059 --> 00:02:57.407 and increase the single. 00:02:57.407 --> 00:03:00.348 The mechanism that drives it has nine motors 00:03:00.348 --> 00:03:02.870 and about 3,000 pulleys. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:12.516 --> 00:03:17.173 Four hundred and forty-five strings in a three-dimensional weave. 00:03:17.173 --> 00:03:20.012 Transferred to a larger scale -- 00:03:20.012 --> 00:03:23.090 actually a lot larger, with a lot of help -- 00:03:23.090 --> 00:03:26.857 14,064 bicycle reflectors -- 00:03:26.857 --> 00:03:30.606 a 20-day install. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:49.683 --> 00:03:51.375 "Connected" is a collaboration 00:03:51.375 --> 00:03:55.179 with choreographer Gideon Obarzanek. 00:03:55.179 --> 00:03:58.520 Strings attached to dancers. 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:00.942 This is very early rehearsal footage, 00:04:00.942 --> 00:04:03.304 but the finished work's on tour 00:04:03.304 --> 00:04:07.677 and is actually coming through L.A. in a couple weeks. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:12.139 --> 00:04:17.171 A pair of helices and 40 wooden slats. 00:04:37.771 --> 00:04:41.000 Take your finger and draw this line. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:45.000 Summer, fall, winter, spring, 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:51.237 noon, dusk, dark, dawn. 00:04:51.237 --> 00:04:54.500 Have you ever seen those stratus clouds 00:04:54.500 --> 00:04:57.173 that go in parallel stripes across the sky? 00:04:57.173 --> 00:04:59.768 Did you know that's a continuous sheet of cloud 00:04:59.768 --> 00:05:03.365 that's dipping in and out of the condensation layer? 00:05:03.365 --> 00:05:06.198 What if every seemingly isolated object 00:05:06.198 --> 00:05:10.042 was actually just where the continuous wave of that object 00:05:10.042 --> 00:05:13.523 poked through into our world? 00:05:13.523 --> 00:05:17.900 The Earth is neither flat nor round. 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:22.323 It's wavy. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:22.323 --> 00:05:27.821 It sounds good, but I'll bet you know in your gut that it's not the whole truth, 00:05:27.821 --> 00:05:29.379 and I'll tell you why. 00:05:29.379 --> 00:05:31.375 I have a two-year-old daughter who's the best thing ever. 00:05:31.375 --> 00:05:33.458 And I'm just going to come out and say it: 00:05:33.458 --> 00:05:36.993 My daughter is not a wave. 00:05:36.993 --> 00:05:41.573 And you might say, "Surely, Rueben, if you took even just the slightest step back, 00:05:41.573 --> 00:05:44.333 the cycles of hunger and eating, 00:05:44.333 --> 00:05:47.173 waking and sleeping, laughing and crying 00:05:47.173 --> 00:05:49.784 would emerge as pattern." 00:05:49.784 --> 00:05:52.411 But I would say, "If I did that, 00:05:52.411 --> 00:05:55.900 too much would be lost." NOTE Paragraph 00:05:55.900 --> 00:06:00.629 This tension between the need to look deeper 00:06:00.629 --> 00:06:03.583 and the beauty and immediacy of the world, 00:06:03.583 --> 00:06:07.285 where if you even try to look deeper you've already missed what you're looking for, 00:06:07.285 --> 00:06:10.356 this tension is what makes the sculptures move. 00:06:10.356 --> 00:06:12.867 And for me, the path between these two extremes 00:06:12.867 --> 00:06:15.602 takes the shape of a wave. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:15.602 --> 00:06:18.669 Let me show you one more. 00:07:00.100 --> 00:07:03.529 Thank you very much. Thanks. 00:07:03.529 --> 00:07:05.710 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:07:05.710 --> 00:07:06.942 Thanks. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:06.942 --> 00:07:11.406 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:07:11.406 --> 00:07:13.179 June Cohen: Looking at each of your sculptures, 00:07:13.179 --> 00:07:15.607 they evoke so many different images. 00:07:15.607 --> 00:07:18.142 Some of them are like the wind and some are like waves, 00:07:18.142 --> 00:07:21.027 and sometimes they look alive and sometimes they seem like math. 00:07:21.027 --> 00:07:23.531 Is there an actual inspiration behind each one? 00:07:23.531 --> 00:07:27.087 Are you thinking of something physical or somthing tangible as you design it? NOTE Paragraph 00:07:27.087 --> 00:07:30.227 RM: Well some of them definitely have a direct observation -- 00:07:30.227 --> 00:07:33.042 like literally two raindrops falling, 00:07:33.042 --> 00:07:35.917 and just watching that pattern is so stunning. 00:07:35.917 --> 00:07:41.606 And then just trying to figure out how to make that using stuff. 00:07:41.621 --> 00:07:44.150 I like working with my hands. 00:07:44.165 --> 00:07:46.375 There's nothing better than cutting a piece of wood 00:07:46.375 --> 00:07:48.125 and trying to make it move. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:48.125 --> 00:07:49.875 JC: And does it ever change? 00:07:49.875 --> 00:07:51.000 Do you think you're designing one thing, 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:52.750 and then when it's produced it looks like something else? NOTE Paragraph 00:07:52.750 --> 00:07:56.208 RM: The "Double Raindrop" I worked on for nine months, 00:07:56.208 --> 00:07:58.534 and when I finally turned it on, 00:07:58.565 --> 00:08:02.208 I actually hated it. 00:08:02.208 --> 00:08:06.333 The very moment I turned it on, I hated it. 00:08:06.333 --> 00:08:09.681 It was like a really deep-down gut reaction, and I wanted to throw it out. 00:08:09.681 --> 00:08:11.825 And I happened to have a friend who was over, 00:08:11.825 --> 00:08:13.837 and he said, "Why don't you just wait." 00:08:13.837 --> 00:08:18.206 And I waited, and the next day I liked it a bit better, 00:08:18.206 --> 00:08:21.167 the next day I liked it a bit better, and now I really love it. 00:08:21.167 --> 00:08:25.833 And so I guess, one, the gut reactions a little bit wrong sometimes, 00:08:25.833 --> 00:08:28.375 and two, it does not look like as expected. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:28.375 --> 00:08:30.792 JC: The relationship evolves over time. 00:08:30.792 --> 00:08:31.667 Well thank you so much. That was a gorgeous treat for us. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:31.667 --> 00:08:34.554 RM: Thanks. (JC: Thank you, Reuben.) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:34.554 --> 00:08:36.917 (Applause)