OMG is a public art project conceptualized for the Pacific Wheel premiering at Glow 2013 in Santa Monica — dusk to dawn on September 28th.
Victoria Vesna is commissioned as one of 3 lead artists for this year’s Glow event in Santa Monica that will take place on September 28th. She is a world renowned artist known for her collaboration with scientists and work with media for many years with a focus on interactive artworks that immerse the audience and put them in the center of the work. Together with her team she is developing the the Octopus Mandala Glow project for the famous Pacific Wheel — the only solar wheel in the world!
“This work is particularly important for me as it has the potential of connecting public art. social networks and ready made aesthetics in significant ways.
OMG is a celebration of the end of the dominion of the machine (we are not cogs in a wheel!) and invites people to occupy their Ferris wheels around the world and record themselves at the top of the wheel saying Oh My God! (OMG!) or chanting OM(G). The collective chorus of voices will be played on the beach and streamed online. This is the premiere with a goal of launching a series of projects with Ferris wheels as mandalas around the world.
OMG is an attempt to create a collective mandala utilizing the ferris wheel as a ready made inspired in part by the Duchamp’s bicycle wheel, the Octopus and the NanoMandala that I worked on with together with a nanoscientist and tibetan monks a decade ago. That sand mandala (chakrasamvara) created by the tibetan monks was thrown back into the ocean at the same Santa Monica beach!
The magic number of this project is eight — 8 spokes of a buddhist wheel, 8-bit LED system of the Pacific Wheel, octogonal gondolas, 8 legs of the octopus and 8 of us in the core team.”
Public Art Events/Project such as the Octopus Mandala Glow (OMG) are a way of sharing and celebrating our humanity, building a global community and having fun and experiencing joy together. The GLOW event is a public art event and OMG is one of the featured exhibits. We hope to use OMG as a prototype of a fun public art event and we are making plans to utilize Ferris Wheels all over the planet as the symbolic theme. OCCUPY YOUR LOCAL FERRIS WHEEL and spread joy on the planet!
Victoria Vesna has a track record of proven success both in her artistic creations (see her website: http://victoriavesna.com), but also as the Director of the UCLA Art/Sci Center + Lab. Her Producing partner for OMG is Ray Zimmerman, a 30 years veteran of Hollywood and former Sr. VP of Sony/Columbia/ATriStar pictures where he oversaw over 100 major feature films including Spider-Man to the Zorro films to Jerry Maguire and As Good As It Gets.