SURREY.- Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Forestry Commission England announced that an ambitious new sculpture by artist duo Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) entitled Cosmos was unveiled at Alice Holt Forest in Surrey.
Cosmos is Semiconductor’s first ever public sculpture and has been commissioned through the Jerwood Open Forest initiative. It is a significant new artwork and is the culmination of more than a year’s research and development by Semiconductor who have collaborated with scientists from Forest Research, the scientific agency of the Forestry Commission. Their work explores the material nature of our world. Through this piece they consider scientific data as a means of understanding the environment, and the relationship between how science represents the physical world and how we experience it.
The spherical piece is based on one year’s worth of measurements of the take up and loss of carbon dioxide from the forest trees collected from the top of a 28m high flux tower located nearby in Alice Holt Research Forest. The work is situated a leisurely 20 minute walk from the visitor centre and is open to the public for years to come.
Jerwood Open Forest was launched in 2013 as part of the Jerwood Visual Arts programme by Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Forestry Commission England, with additional support of public funding through Arts Council England’s Grants for the arts programme. The initiative invited artists working in any discipline to respond to the possibilities presented by the incredible landscapes of the Public Forest Estate. Two £30,000 commissions were awarded in February this year; the other was awarded to collaborators Chris Watson and Iain Pate, for their multi-channel sound installation taking place in Kielder Water & Forest Park in late October.
Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) founded Semiconductor in 1999. Through moving image works they explore the material nature of our world and how we experience it, questioning our place in the physical universe. During 2014 Semiconductor have installed Play of Light, their first site-specific moving image installation commissioned for Chichester Festival Theatre, and have sat on the jury panels for the Hamburg International Short Film Festival, and Prix Ars Electronica for Computer Animation, Film and VFX. They are currently producing a commission for ArtScience Museum, Singapore for a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition, opening in November 2014.
