cy keener

in collaboration with Jay Atherton
Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, 2010
Ice, wood, polyethelyn cloth, fleece
37' x 52' x 18'

in collaboration with Will Chapman
Moghadam Family Gallery, Stanford University, 2015
Field: 60 wind sensors
Gallery: 54’ x 19’ wall of light beams

in collaboration with Jay Atherton
Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, UTEP 2011
Reflected sunlight, plaster cloth, steel cable
33' x 54' x 12'

Field deployment to Utqiagvik, Alaska in April, 2019 to place ice thickness measuring buoys in multi-year sea ice.

Sea ice pressure ridges are formed when flat areas of ice are driven into each other by wind and ocean currents.

A tripod supports light and temperature sensors that extend from the air above the ice down through the ice and into the ocean. The watertight enclosure to the left houses custom electronics, battery and a satellite modem to transmit data off the ice.

Detail of the the buoy hull pattern. This was a nylon 3D print manufactured at the Autodesk lab in Toronto, Canada.

Detail of the light string sensor - a 3.2 meter long circuit board with a RGB/IR light sensor every 5 cm. On the back side is a temperature string with temperature sensors every 2 cm. 224 sensors in total collect a vertical section of information through the ice.

Detail of the buoy electronics showing a purple custom circuit board with Arduino microcontroller, atmospheric pressure sensor, GPS, and connection to the external sensors. These instruments are paired with an Iridium modem. The buoy is left on the ice and drifts across the ocean surface.

Our deployment group and cluster of buoys included researchers from five universities.

This diagram shows how the light and temperature sensors are installed through the floating ice.

in collaboration with Jay Atherton
Suyama Space, 2011
Air currents, mylar, twine, basalt
47' x 29' x 14'

Deployed in the Indian Ocean on June 24, 2018
Installed at ISEA 2018 in Durban, South Africa.
Field: mold blown glass, aluminum, cast resin and electronics.
Gallery: laser light, scrim, aluminum and electronics.

Stanford Art Gallery, 2015
Aluminum, wood, fiber optic
170" x 79" x 140"

Deployed in the Pacific Ocean on April 20th, 2016.
Installed at Stanford Art Gallery, 2016
Field: Cast resin, electronics, Iridium satellite network, chain.
Gallery: Cast resin, electronics, projectors, motors, chain.

Scientists have been deploying battery powered sensors on ocean buoys for the past 30 years to track currents, waves, temperature, salinity, pH, and other metrics in an effort to understand the ocean.

The accepted design standards for these single use instruments typically rely on plastics, urethane foams and lead acid batteries - things that are generally understood to be bad for the ocean. Unfortunately, most of these instruments have a fixed lifespan, becoming ocean trash once they run out of battery power.

My goal was to create a seaworthy object with waterproof electronics enclosures out of materials that will have minimal impact on the ocean if / when it becomes lost at sea. I spent three months at Autodesk's Pier 9 exploring this question, and the following prototypes are the result of that inquiry.

Why glass? Glass is energy intensive, but the finished material has minimal negative impact if lost at sea. I had the opportunity to experiment with the material thanks to the generosity of fellow Artist in Residence and expert craftsperson, Stefanie Pender.

Within Fusion 360, I built a virtual mold out of multiple pieces of wood, and subtracted the desired shape from each piece. Fusion 360 also enabled me to toolpath my desired shapes. I used a wood and foam CNC milling machine made by DMS. I arranged rectangular wood pieces on the DMS table, and used mostly large end mills to remove the unwanted stock and create the voids required for the mold. Once the pieces were cut on the DMS, I had to finish preparing them by hand and assemble them into a glued mold.

With Stefanie’s guidance and help, I rendered a glass shape from a wood mold; this turned out to be a difficult and iterative process.

The main problem we encountered was getting the mold wet enough to not burn, and porous enough to let the steam escape without changing the shape of the glass. If steam is trapped in the mold, the glass can't fully expand to conform to the hoped for shape. After three different versions of the mold, we were able to produce compelling glass positives from the wood negative.

The glass vessel's purpose is to provide buoyancy. For proper operation, a data buoy needs to have a set of electronics oriented towards the sky (for communication), and a shape that moves well with the waves. I relied on corrosion resistant aluminum to ballast the buoys. The main function of the metal parts is to secure the electronics, keep the buoys upright, and dampen wave motion. I created full physical prototypes of three different designs.

According to those who study the microphysics of raindrops, there is an amazing complexity in the size, shape and velocity of rainfall. This kind of information can be found in meteorological journals. I became interested in recording the size and location of raindrops on my own.

I used water sensitive paper manufactured by a Swiss company named Syngenta. The paper arrives a beautiful vibrant yellow, and maintains this color as long as it is dry. When it is exposed to water, the paper turns blue through chemical reaction. After doing some tests with a DSLR, I realized that I could use video to record the paper as I exposed it to rain. From this information, it is possible to work backwards and hypothesize about how big each drop is, when it landed, how fast it was going, and where it might have been in the air before it landed.