Science and art collaboration creates rainbows!

 Earlier you have read about clouds created by artists with the help of science here. Now artists, think about creating rainbows. And magic, magic, magic, magic science is making it possible! Yes, your thoughts will come true and science will make them come true! Because science and art are coming together to create rainbows in the sky!

The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts is pleased to present Michael Jones McKean’s The Rainbow: Certain Principles of Light and Shapes Between Forms. The project creates a simple, but phenomenal visual event — a rainbow in the sky. The public artwork will produce temporary rainbows above the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska using the most elemental materials: sunlight and rainwater. Twice per day with clear sun, for 20 minutes each, a rainbow will appear above Bemis Center’s downtown building.

This commissioned artwork and exhibition represents extensive cross-disciplinary collaboration. Irrigation and rainwater harvesting experts from Omaha-based Lindsay Corporation and Watertronics, structural and mechanical engineers, atmospheric scientists, plumbing and electrical experts and Bemis Center staff have joined artist Michael Jones McKean in creating a wholly integrated system for this site-specific, temporary work.

The artwork will solely utilize captured rainwater and will be powered with renewable sources. Leading up to the exhibition, extensive modifications to the Bemis Center’s five-story, repurposed industrial warehouse took place — creating a completely self-contained water harvesting and large-scale storage system. Throughout the project cycle, collected and recaptured stormwater will be filtered and stored in six above-ground, 10,500 gallon water tanks. Within the gallery, a custom designed 60-horsepower pump supplies pressurized water to nine nozzles mounted to the 20,000 square foot roof of the Bemis Center. At timed intervals, in the morning and early evening, a dense water-wall will be projected above the building in which a rainbow will emerge. Based on atmospheric conditions, vantage point, available sunlight and the changing angle of the sun in the sky, each rainbow will have a singular character and quality. Depending on the position of the sun, one could see the rainbow from a thousand feet away or seemingly touch it with your hand.

Whether a majestic arch in the sky that appears after a short spring shower or a small, homespun rainbow created with a garden hose on a sunny day, a rainbow operates as an egalitarian visual experience. It is by nature temporary, undetermined, and wonderful. The Rainbow exists somewhere between real and representation, actual and artifice.

The Rainbow is a work of significant logistical complexity that realizes a silent, delicate and temporary visual experience. The work provides a direct and momentous experience of art, science, ecology and wonder.

You can see the pictures of the rainbow and learn more about how this is made possible here:

http://www.bemiscenter.org/art/exhibitions/rainbow-project.html

And nobody can  say science doesn't deal with aesthetics now.