UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The HUB-Robeson Galleries will present “Plug In, Turn On,” a two-person exhibition of works by Pittsburgh-based artists Ian Brill and Kevin Clancy, alongside “Architecting Atmospheres,” an exhibition of works by architecture students from the Penn State Stuckeman School. The works in the exhibition use sound, light and space to create environmental atmospheres. These interventions, experiences and objects consider the potential of speculative futures on the human scale.

The exhibits will run in the Robeson Gallery from Feb. 7 to March 31. A gallery reception, free and open to the public, will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. on Feb. 28 in the Robeson Gallery on the lower level of the HUB-Robeson Center. 

'Plug In, Turn On'

Brill is a multi-media artist, instructor in the School of Visual Arts at Penn State, and an alumnus of Penn State’s Master of Fine Arts program. Built on-site in the Robeson Gallery, Brill’s new work "Court" combines light, sound and technology into an interactive environment.

Constructed from modular units, the piece is part of a series, each of which uses computer programming to control colored LED lights and sound cues. The series, called "Transmission," has been exhibited throughout the U.S. at venues including the Warhol Museum Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Mattress Factory.

Clancy is an interdisciplinary artist who creates prismatic light environments and sculptures that provide momentary glimpses into utopic possibilities. In his series of works "IRIS_SIRI," Clancy explores what the omnipresent spectacle of “screen time” and the impacts of technological acceleration may mean for the human species. Beautiful, humorous and subversively critical, the work explores Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, and Siri, the goddess of the smart phone.

For this exhibition, Clancy has designed artworks for the gallery windows that simultaneously flood the interior with vibrant gradient shifts and provide a color-drenched lens to view the outside world. The saturation, light level, and gradients change over the course of each day as the sun shifts position in the sky and weather conditions change. These atmospheric light shifts alter and heighten viewer perceptions, not only of the works in the installation but of the world we will return to.

'Architecting Atmospheres'

A group of models and drawings, this exhibition showcases the works of students from Assistant Professor of Architecture Yasmine Abbas’s Special Topics course, Atmospheres: Perception, Design and Fabrication, produced in spring and fall 2018; as well as excerpt production (assignment designed in relation to the course on Atmospheres) from the fourth-year design studio co-taught with Professor Nathaniel Belcher (fall 2018 and spring 2019).

Including representational drawings and models as well as charts and maps of the intangible, this group of works explores notations and phenomenon of combining light, sound, materiality and reflection. Appealing to our senses, and triggering the imagination, we feel and sense the architects thinking through drawings and materials.

The exhibit includes works by Nicholas Backer, Audrey Buck, Brendan Burke, Yumih Chang, Aleah Davis, Nicolas Fudali, Jonathan Gutt, Alexander Hopple, Danielle Hind, Thomas Leonard, Teagan Marron, In Pun, Bryan Ray, Joshua Tubay, Nathan Steinhauer and Robert West.

For more information on this and other exhibitions, contact the HUB-Robeson Galleries at 814-865-2563, or visit our website.