Internationally known for his transformable structures, Chuck Hoberman presents an experience of transformable space and aesthetic possibility with 10° — Le Laboratoire’s 22nd experiment. Taking Hoberman’s work in a new direction, 10° is a large-scale installation of four kinetic sculptures that can be transformed by guests through hands-on play.
The title of the exhibition refers to the concept of ten degrees of freedom: the sum of all possible trajectories for the four pieces, which have individually one, two, three, and four degrees of mobility. This exhibit draws on collaborations between Hoberman and researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, including Katia Bertoldi, James Weaver, and Johannes Overvelde. Together, they have developed a system of original origami-like folding mechanisms termed “prismatic structures” based on crystal-lattice geometries. Applications for their research include deployable buildings, shape-shifting robots, and deformable metamaterials with properties beyond those found in nature.
10° invites visitors to explore fully ten dimensions of form by touch, displacement, and observation, remaking the installation by their act of exploration, whether individually or with other visitors in a kind of kinetic object choreography.
For more information, please visit: http://www.lelaboratoirecambridge.com/22-10-degrees
About Chuck Hoberman
Chuck Hoberman seamlessly fuses the disciplines of art, architecture and engineering. Through his products, patents, and structures, Hoberman demonstrates how objects can be foldable, retractable, or shape-shifting. His art has been exhibited around the world over the last 20 years. He created the transforming video screen for U2’s 360° world tour (2009-2011), the Hoberman Arch in Salt Lake City, installed for the Winter Olympic Games (2002), a retractable dome for the World’s Fair in Hanover, Germany (2000), and Emergent Surface (2008) shown at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Hoberman recently joined the Wyss Institute as an Associate Faculty member and was appointed the Pierce Anderson Lecturer in Design Engineering at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). He has played a leading role in Harvard-wide initiatives intended to bridge the gap between design and science. This fall, he is serving as an inaugural faculty member for Harvard’s new collaborative Master in Design Engineering (MDE) program, shared by the GSD and Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).