Approach at Glance : Gas Sculpture and Its Potential for Art Interactivity

What is gas sculpture? Have you ever heard of it? Today, people are slowly but surely conceiving new and innovative ways of creating art. Sculpture however, was founded on the basis of concrete and tangible substances. It was stretched many times with the emergence of water sculpture, sound sculpture and kinetic sculpture, however these days there are even stranger discoveries that the art world has got to look out for. Gas sculpture was first proposed by Joan Miro, but has extended itself to become a worldwide question- how can one sculpt gas?

Photography by Black Squirrel

At the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, there exists a prime example of the new media. A pond is surrounded by an array of tiny nozzles that can be switched on to produce a fine, billowing fog. Considered to be a sculpture that continuously changes in shape, this artwork is supposed to be affected by the various surroundings that change as well, such as wind currents, plant life and water rushes.

There are other sculptures out there that already make use of gas as an aesthetic element, such as Jean-Paul Riopele's L Joute, which makes use of fog nozzles along with its fire jets and fountains.

There is currently a growing number of art enthusiasts who are trying to get involved with the evolution of gas sculpture. Some museums, like the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh are planning to install gas-related sculpture art for interactivity and art appreciation among the youth.