Sentient Matrix

Commissioned by the Multiple Sclerosis Society's Alabama-Mississippi chapter, Alabama-Mississippi Chapter Legacy of Leadership honoring M. Miller Gorrie.

The sculpture is an abstraction of the central nervous system (CNS), an exploration and translation of scientific information into art.  A study of form and space becomes an independent force, a living entity in the three dimensional space of the atrium

Based on relationships between different cells in the brain, including neurons, the primary communicative cells of the CNS, and the myelinating glial cells that cover the nerve fibers.

The light moving within the translucent abaca forms creates linear rhythms suggesting nerve impulses. When the light stops, it refers to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in which the myelin and nerve are damaged. 

Photo and video: Hugh Hunter Photography

Sentient Matrix Sculpture Team

Special Thanks to Bob Paradisco for electronics and firmware developed @access_redefined

Hunter Hope Project: Celebration of a glass half full

Sara is an artist in New York. She has recently come home to Birmingham, Al. in order to create and install a large commissioned sculpture for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. I treasure her friendship and have enjoyed documenting much of her work for 36 years (we were both 15 yrs. old when we met).

Because of her experience and the energy she produces, I knew early on that she would be someone I wanted to talk with about Hope. So we chatted, I took photos and then I put the audio file aside. I didn’t feel that I knew what I was doing with the project at the time. But now, as she has come home to work on the MS commission, it is good timing to pick up where we left it earlier.

At the beginning of our first talk I asked her the question I have stopped asking people…“On a Hope scale of 1 to 10, where are you?”. She says 7.5, but follows that with, “But don’t forget that as a person gets older, there’s another perspective. I’ll have a hard time not being hopeful about the next day, and I am excited to wake up every morning. I love getting up.” I ask her what she thinks about when she first wakes up. “Oh, I’ve got another day. I mean, I think of all the stuff I could do today.” She says this with the enthusiasm of a teenager. After conversation about the difference between just appearing positive and what Hope might be, she says, “Hope is not Happy, but it is an emotion, and it is about possibilities. You think there is something else ahead and that you are going to get there, wherever that may be”.                        (read more at:  http://www.hughhunterphoto.com/?p=981  

(read more at:http://www.hughhunterphoto.com/?p=981)

Central Booking Magazine

A Guide to the Art of the Book... and Beyond  February 2014 Volume V, Issue 1