William “Buck” Walsky, an Anchorage, Alaska-based, Colorado Springs-native artist, originally designed the immersive outdoor installation Beach Front for the notorious annual Burning Man festival, a multi-day extravaganza of music and art held in the heart of the Nevada desert. Utilizing found bicycle wheels, structural steel, and LED lights, Walsky’s massive installation responds to movements of the air, and gives the viewer a sensation of being in an underwater wonderland populated by electric jellyfish. By transferring the horizontal movement of wind to the perpendicular plane of the light canopy the wind becomes visible in a unique way and the fluid properties of the wind are illustrated.
Walsky considers Beach Front to be the culmination of over thirty years of work: conceptualizing, dreaming, imagining, creating. During this time, Walsky has made numerous small-scale working models, but finally saw the idea come to fruition in 2015 as a sculptural and architectural achievement. Walsky states that his “aspiration is to create a permanent piece that holds people’s interest for extended period and continues to draw them back in, that defines a community, and is a public gathering space.” Walsky cites concerns about the changing climate and rising water levels as his impetus to create the piece, hoping to instigate dialogue among participants.
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