'Modular Serendipity': A Vacuum-Formed Modular Plastic Mural

Abstract

The mural illustrated in Fig. 1, entitled 'Modular Serendipity', was installed in 1977 in the Main Place of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside at Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.A. It measures 7.5 x 3.3 m, consists of 21 modular units, each 91 x 91 cm, and it is mounted 45 cm from the wall. It is lit from above by daylight from a 30?angled glass roof. The work had its genesis in the industrial use of vacuum-forming techniques for objects made of plastics. I began, in 1968, to use a vacuum-former in Birmingham, England, at the Birmingham Polytechnic. There it was used mainly by students of industrial design for making items such as picnic trays and advertising signs. I was interested in the technique because it makes it possible to produce copies of 3-dimensional artworks of the multiple type as quickly and as easily as producing, say, lithograph prints. The viewing of a group of vacuum-formed 3dimensional tile-like artworks seemed to me to be of much more artistic interest than viewing one alone. If a unit does not have a symmetrical design, then a number of the units can be grouped in different combinations of the orientation of the unit to provide a variety of relief configurations. For a discussion of this type of artwork see Ref. 1. In 1969, an exhibition took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London called 'Cybernetic Serendipity' [2]. Some of the exhibition was devoted to artworks by artists who had chosen to incorporate chance effects as an integral aspect of their visual character. At that time, I was a lecturer at the Birmingham Polytechnic School of Art Education and carried out some projects with students using sets of parameters for artworks that included chance effects [3]. The original model of the unit for the mural was made in clay over a wooden armature. Its large dimensions (91 x 91 cm) posed some difficulties, since variations in the depth of the clay skin tended to cause uneven drying. From this model a 5 cm-thick plaster cast was made. This was reinforced in parts with scrim and with light steel rods. This cast was, of course, a negative of the final mural unit. It is sometimes possible to vacuum-form directly into such a female mold if heat-resistant plaster is used, but it seemed wiser, because of the size and the 21 units required, to make a positive cast from the plaster in fiberglass-reinforced resin. The cast was between 10 and 13 mm thick. Since between 1.8 and 2.0 kg/sq cm (25 and 28 lb/sq in.) pressure is applied in the forming process, a