Gallery: LED Tree Sculpture Aurora Will Light Up Burning Man
01aurora
Self-taught sculptor Charlie Gadeken likes to play with fire, as evidenced by his blazing body of blowtorch artwork. But for his latest piece, *Aurora*, the San Francisco-based kinetic wizard has chosen LEDs to light up a massive tree that's programmed to mutate colors from day to night. How ambitious is Gadeken? Here's his description of *Aurora*, a sculpture reminiscent of Avatar's bioluminescent [Tree of Souls](http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Tree_of_Souls) that will be unveiled at this year's Burning Man festival: "It's a weeping willow tree that's 35 feet tall with a 45-foot canopy," [Gadeken](http://charlesgadeken.com/) told Wired.com in an e-mail. "During the daytime, 5,000 copper leaves will flicker from light to dark, shimmering as the breeze travels across the surface of the tree. At night, the 30,000 LEDs that line the tree will light up, change color and make the tree shimmer in a completely different way." Gadeken, a high-school dropout who created 500-foot-wide paintings before getting into flame-based art 15 years ago, wants to find a permanent home for [*Aurora*](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDmGAcR5okY&NR=1 http://youtu.be/8RKJLojjFb4) after its [Burning Man](http://www.burningman.com/) debut this August. For the year-round iteration of the piece, he said, LEDs would follow the seasons, "changing from green in the spring through the autumn colors to winter white." Gadeken launched a Kickstarter campaign Tuesday to [raise funds for the all-seasons *Aurora*](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2015206065/aurora-the-willow). Check the gallery above to learn more about *Aurora* and Gadeken's previous experiments in light and sound. __Above:__ *Aurora* Mock-Up ---------------- __Concept:__ "Aurora is inspired in part by my 3-year-old daughter," Gadeken says. "It's the ultimate fairy tree that brings a little magic into our world. I wanted to create something that is amazing, fantastic and real." __Specs:__ Made from 5,000 feet of pipe, 15 sheets of copper, 30 sheets of 4-foot-by-8-foot steel and 10 sheets of quarter-inch plate, *Aurora* has interactive buttons that control the patterns of colors on the tree. See how it will work in the video below. http://www.youtube.com/embed/8RKJLojjFb4
02aperion
Aperion ------- __Concept:__ Aperion, Gadeken's most recent artwork, "depicts a flower with three stamens made from Tesla coils that shoot 4-foot arcs of lightning," he says. Gadeken named the piece after the Greek philosophical concept denoting "[primal energy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeiron_(cosmology))." __Specs:__ The piece is 16 feet tall; it's made from 1,000 feet of quarter-inch stainless steel rod and hand-beaten copper sheets. See it in action in the video below. http://www.youtube.com/embed/KHA\_Uk7ZLl0
03aperion-detail
Aperion Detail -------------- __Aperion is interactive:__ "The piece plays music through custom-built interfaces including theremins, sliders, buttons or even electric guitars and can take up to three tracks of MIDI inputs," Gadeken says.
04nous
*Nous* ------ __Concept:__ "Nous was developed eight years ago when I created a six-headed interactive flower as part of the [Flaming Lotus Girls](http://www.flaminglotus.com/)' desert installation Fire Island," says Gadeken. __Specs:__ Nous is made from 2,000 feet of quarter-inch round stainless steel bar and 80 feet of copper. It has a 13-foot-tall, nine-headed flower with 91 hand-beaten copper petals. It's made in conjunction with Ray Sykes, engineer, and Michael Magana.
Photographer: Jason Chinn05nous-detail
*Nous* Detail ------------- __In control:__ "Fire art is usually controlled by professional operators in a booth," Gadeken says. By contrast, he notes, "*Nous* could be controlled by the audience. We started with a control box that gave the operator limitless control over all effects, though it takes two people to operate all effects at once. Nous shoots 4-foot blasts of fire in quick, robust bursts." The piece evolved over time, Gadeken says. "We incorporated musical elements and enabled the piece to play sounds, and eventually adjusted the controls so that you weren't required to have any musical ability to make it sound good." Nous generates several rhythmic patterns, and can accept input from a MIDI device and be played like an instrument.
Photographer: Jason Chinn06spike
*Spike* ------- __Concept:__ "For this piece," Gadeken says, "I wanted to create a kinetic representation of a heart in action. The spinning flames simulate the left and right ventricles, sculpting the heartbeat out of fire. Though the piece is covered in spikes, it's not scary, but empowering. It's a heart that penetrates outwards while being well-protected." __Specs:__ Heart is constructed mainly from stainless steel with the addition of 48 cast-bronze spikes measuring 24 inches each. Two counter-rotating teardrops fill the "heart" with spinning whirls of blue, white and yellow flame within the solid form.
07spin
*Spin* ------ __Concept:__ "I got the idea for Spin from a piece of art I saw at \[a [Survival Research Laboratories](http://www.srl.org/)\] show that created a fire vortex," says Gadeken. __Specs:__ *Spin* has eight 3-foot-tall blades that rotate at 400 revolutions per minute, creating a fire tornado that can rise 12 feet in the air — an undulating, serpentine flame.
08spin-detail
*Spin* Detail ------------- __Sculpting flames:__ "I'd been making pieces with fire effects for a while, but they were more sculptures with fire elements," says Gadeken. "I wanted to make a sculpture out of fire so that the form of fire itself was controlled and sculpted."
09pneuma
*Pneuma* -------- __Concept:__ "The word [*pneuma* refers to the wind between molecules](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneuma_(disambiguation))," Gadeken says. "I wanted to keep sculpting fire while bringing in a more elegant sculptural form to the piece. This series is about the origin of time — the [Big Bang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang). Pneuma, Spike and Spin all refer to primal elements of creation and mystical energy. It has two primary effects: a fire vortex and an exterior 3-D fire stamen. It's a little like Spike and Spin combined, with the ability to dynamically change from one to the other, with a wide range of intermediary effects." __Specs:__ Made from 100 feet of quarter-inch round rod, *Pneuma* has a custom-built rotary union. The flower is hand-beaten while the body is comprised of two handmade pieces.
10pneuma-group-shot
*Pneuma* Detail --------------- __Engaging the viewer:__ "I wanted to create something that captivated the viewer, and prevented them from being passive," says Gadeken. "Whatever their opinion about the work, I want the viewer to be moved to stop and look and engage. Though *Pneuma* doesn't have a specifically musical effect, its rotation provides a beat and can be played along with the other two. "You get this sensation of magic when your movements in the air produce lightning above your head," Gadeken says.
