Angela Bulloch

A graphic pattern that creates the illusion of an endless plane made of three-dimensional rhombi is the basis for Angela Bulloch’s latest work. The pattern is both classical, similar to the floors of ancient cathedrals and palaces, and trendy, its blue-gray palette connoting a technological coolness. Bulloch infiltrates digitized systems—their algorithms and mathematical sets of rules—to transpose elements from within the matrix into physical space. Here, the graphic Euclidean plane is manipulated by irregularities, such as bubbles or stretched areas, and materialized as multiple objects.

In one room of the gallery, various totem-like sculptures, such as Rhombi Kind with Clay Head 006 (all works cited, 2014), are made up of irregularly composed stacks of rhombic polyhedrons, which make the sculptures seem two-dimensional. Several wall pieces, including Single Printed Navy Wall Hanging 006, consist of strips of dark felt overlaid with prints of the graphic pattern; small wooden rivets serve as an inner frame from which the strips hang. A gray felt diptych, Hercules Wall Hanging 008, dominates the space, extending downward from the wall to occupy parts of the floor. On the upper right corner, LED lights represent the stellar constellation of Hercules, calculated on a 3-D mapping program to render a view from a faraway point in the universe rather than from Earth.

This back and forth between the virtual and the physical can be disorienting. As if to soothe the discombobulated visitor, two oversize cavernous beanbags have been placed in another room, like invitations to sit back and watch the slow progress of the sound-activated Elliptical Song Drawing Machine. Operated by a musical composition Bulloch performed with David Grubbs in 2013, it’s the first of the artist’s drawing machines programmed to draw circles rather than lines, tracing the composition’s own looped sequences that are audible only through earphones. But there’s no respite from the digital: In Virtual Vitro: Steffi Avatar Video, screened on a tablet, displays a digital talking head that guides the weary through the show.