'Concrete is Fluid'
Behind the New Neon Sign


Concrete is Fluid
Farmlab
Neon Gas Inside Clear Tubing
2007


Farmlab's latest neon sign reads, "Concrete is Fluid."

The piece is some thirty-feet-long by five-feet-tall; it's written in a bold, fuschian color, in a boxy sans-serif font.

The sign is located in the garage in front of Farmlab -- where the relative darkness makes the sign ever-more visible.

At Farmlab, the three-word phrase was first mentioned by team member Steve Rowell; the observation was based on previous work done, in Houston, Texas, by the Center for Land Use Interpretation. (Rowell is a principal in that group.)

At Farmlab that day, among the various topics of discussion were: fountains, in general, and the brutalist architecture of the Hayward Gallery, located on London's concrete-laden South Bank.

Farmlab team members liked the notion of concrete being seen as something it's not, at least in the standard sense; as well as applying it to a very concrete place -- in this case, both the Farmlab parking garage as well as the London gallery.

Think of the three words, Rowell explained, as being a projection of architecture versus nature, in an oblique way. "All concrete was fluid for a brief period of time," he says, "between being rock and rock again."

Photo posted by laavocado; photo courtesy flickr.com's creative commons license

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