Jesse Collin Jackson
Marching Cubes#28


Platform 28 presented Marching Cubes #28: Gravity-Inflected Spherical Void, a site-specific installation by California-based Canadian artist Jesse Colin Jackson during Spring 2017. 

Drawing inspiration from a computer algorithm of the same name, Jesse Colin Jackson’s Marching Cubes projects leverage 3D printing to make the virtual world physical. In the 1980s, researchers devised an algorithm for generating computer graphics from medical scan data that featured an underlying language of faceted cubes. Jackson has translated this virtual procedure into sculptures, which are assembled from a modular set of 3D printed components. By enacting the algorithm in the real world, Marching Cubes generates dialogue about the ways in which information technologies create the building blocks of contemporary culture. 

Marching Cubes #28 is a site-specific response to Platform 28’s constraints. To facilitate assembly from a distance, its design minimizes unique components and maximizes repetition and symmetry. To ensure stability, it has been selectively lightened and reinforced. It began in the virtual realm as spherical void subtracted from a cube; the ultimate result is a large continuous volume that, when collapsed, can be transported by plane as a single piece of checked baggage. Also on view is digital video depicting larger scale Marching Cubes assemblies at four previous venues in Los Angeles, Toronto, New York City, and Vancouver. 

Jesse Colin Jackson’s practice is focused on object- and image-making as alternative modes of architectural production. He manipulates forms and ideas found in virtual and built environments through the expressive opportunities provided by digital fabrication and visualization technologies. Previous solo exhibitions include Marching Cubes (Pari Nadimi Gallery and the Experimental Media Performance Lab, 2017), Radiant City (Pari Nadimi Gallery, 2014), Automatic/Revisited (Latitude 44, 2013), and Usonia Road (Larry Wayne Richards Gallery, 2009). Jackson is a Professor of Electronic Art and Design at the University of California, Irvine, and is represented by Pari Nadimi Gallery in Toronto.