Rhizomatic Lilac Fizz is a permanent public art installation commissioned by the Oregon Arts Commission’s Percent for Art in Public Places program. The overhead sculpture is a 30’ long, 22’ wide, 9’ tall canopy hovering over the lobby of the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center’s new additive manufacturing facility in Scappoose, OR.

Composed of 880 parts, Rhizomatic Lilac Fizz suggests an interconnected network as well as a dynamic flock of discrete components. At the heart of Vertebrae’s practice and this installation is an intended tension between the interconnected and the discrete, the network and the cloud, the complex and the organized, the engineered and the free-form. A tension that, in this case, is resolved partly through gestured movements that suggest communal action and partly through an undeniable structural quality. The sculptural network spans overhead between three walls and over 30 feet with no overhead support. Discrete parts working together and held in tension suggest readings of unseen networks embedded within social, ecological, and technological contexts.

Utilizing the plasticity of form enabled by 3D printing, each node is shaped by the three-dimensional network of intersecting tubes and no two are alike. In addition to serving as the structural connectors, the nodes are also the ‘brains’ of the operation: embedded in their form are the instructions, guides, and notations necessary to assemble the complex sculpture. They stand in stark contrast to the uniform, rigid tubes, yielding to their formal arrangement, yet supporting and connecting the composite network of parts. All of the wall attachment nodes are 3D printed stainless steel while all of the mid-span nodes are printed in PLA.