A lot of artists use unconventional materials to construct their visionary pieces but there's something about the shimmering surface of a CD whose twinkle in the light draws the eye. That's part of the reason why sculptor Leticia Bajuyo works almost exclusively with the nearly obsolete material. The artist, who is also an Associate Professor of Art at Hanover College, laboriously assembles thousands of donated CDs into large-scale sculptural installations that are both impossible to miss and hard to keep your eyes off of.
Each site-specific installation utilizes the material's reflective nature to create a psychedelic disco ball effect on the given space. Like the once sought after medium's allure, the installation presents a gigantic “shiny thing” for audiences to be mesmerized by. It's rather ironic, considering the fall of CDs into obscurity. There is no concrete place for the CD when the storage unit has been replaced by other sources of external hard drives or mp3's and CD drives themselves have gone extinct in an age of apps and digital downloads.
It is this concept of a vortex of oblivion that seems to inspire many of Bajuyo's installations' designs mimicking a shrinking tunnel. In some instances, they resemble horns, once again drawing a link to the CD's trumpeted reign in technology's recent history. Each piece reveals a specific message pertaining to the medium, technology, and society. Despite varying messages, the Indiana-based sculptor uses the same basic materials for almost all of the works–CDs, fishing lines, cable ties, and wood.
Bajuyo's latest piece titled Event Horizon, is currently on display at Eastfield College through October 26, 2012.
If you like artworks made of CDs, you should also check out this CD dragon sculpture, Sean Avery's animal sculptures, and Bruce Munro's Waterlillies in Bloom.
