• Completion Date: 1991
• Artist: Joseph McShane
• Location: Cholla Branch Library, 10050 Metro Parkway East
• Description: Celebrating the southwestern sun, two kinetic light sculptures transform sunlight, through heliostats and vacuum coated mirrors, into all the colors of the spectrum, playing chromatic images across the interior walls of the building.
• Funding: This project was made possible by the City of Phoenix Percent for Art fuFds and is administered by the Phoenix Arts Commission Public Art Program.
• Photos: View photos of this artwork by GEOPA Project author, Alice Christie, Ph.D.
  

• Navigating to Language of Light using a GPS receiver
• View this public art from a distance
  • Describe what you see OUTSIDE the library.
  • Describe what you see INSIDE the library.
  • What medium is used to create this artwork?
  • What is "art" of this artwork?
  • Is it always possible to see the "art" of this artwork? Why or why not?
  • What is unusual about this artwork?
• View this public art close-up
  • Look at one of the colors or images. Which color or image is most interesting to you? Why?
  • If you have a camera, take a picture. Is your picture the same as what we see?
  • Why or why not

Think about these questions?

• What is public art?
• Why is this public art part of a library?
• Where else could this public art be meaningfully place? Why?
• How does this art work build community identity?
• How does this art work enhance the civic landscape?
• Joseph McShane's art work explores the relationship between art and technology, and celebrates the earth’s basic natural resources as the foundation of technological innovation. How do you define this relationship?
• While its probably obvious why artists might want to get their work into space (to boldly go where no man has gone before…) it’s less evident why space programs support art in space since it costs $9000 for NASA to send each kilogram into orbit. How do you feel about this issue.

About the Artist

• Joseph McShane is based in Prescott, AZ.
• He works in metal, space, light, technological hardware and other mediums to explore spatial and material relationships and how people perceive and interacts with the universe.  He has received a number of significant commissions for his work including the first artwork in space created by computer command on board the space shuttle Challenger. 

• Just after 7 a.m. on October 5, 1984, the space shuttle Challenger blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It contained Payload G-38, a work by the artist, Joseph McShane.
• As usual, it had a variety of payloads in its cargo bay, including a trash-can sized canister mounted unobtrusively along a side wall. Known to the flight crew simply as "Payload G-38," this padded aluminum cylinder held the elements of the first sculpture to be fabricated in space.
• Among other things, G-38 contained a clear glass globe about 14 inches in diameter, fitted with a flexible stainless-steel tube and a valve. It left the Earth filled with 22 liters of sea-level air at sea-level pressure. In orbit, the valve was opened for several days by the payload's control system to establish equilibrium between the globe and its environment. The sphere came back to Earth with 22 liters of ultra-thin upper atmosphere. Now permanently sealed, it is attached to a vacuum gauge with digital readout. The gauge is sensitive enough to show moment-to-moment changes in the pressure-difference between the space vacuum inside and the atmosphere outside pressing against the sphere.
• Joseph McShane, the artist responsible for Payload G-38, says, "The sculpture then is not the glass, but the outer space contained within. The sphere serves only to keep the one-g Earth atmosphere from intruding." Its presence gives the air around it presence by contrast.

Other Work by the Artist

• Click to view other works by Joseph McShane

Evaluation

• What did you enjoy about this artwork? Why?
• What did you NOT enjoy about this artwork? Why?
• How does "space art" attract people to the library?
• How does "space art" help people understand the earth, the sun, the climate, the changing nature of our environment?

Reflection

• What did you learn about public art from this experience?
• How does public art add to people's enjoyment of a building?
• What aspect of this public art made the greatest impression on you? Why?
• How does this artwork help you develop a sense of your community? Help you identify with your community?

Public Art enhances the quality of life by helping to define and formulate responses to social, economic, cultural and political issues faced by a community. Public Art contributes to cross-cultural understanding, and a sense of ownership and responsibility towards one's community. In its broadest definition, Public Art inspires community understanding, pride and creativity, and benefits the growth and development of the individual and community life. At its best, Public Art is more than simply art integrated, installed or performed in a public place; rather it is a community-based process of dialogue, involvement, and participation. In many instances, Public Art has become a major source of identity for a community.

Public Art is artwork in the public realm, regardless of whether it is situated on public or private property, or whether it is acquired through public or private funding. Public Art can be a sculpture, mural, manhole cover, paving pattern, lighting, seating, building facade, kiosk, gate, fountain, play equipment, engraving, carving, fresco, mobile, collage, mosaic, bas-relief, tapestry, photograph, drawing, or earthwork.

This lesson is linked to the following Arizona State Department Standards:

• Visual Arts
  Strand 2: Relate
  Concept 4: Meanings or Purposes
  Concept # 4: Meanings or Purposes: The student will interpret meanings or purposes of artwork based on contextual information.
• Visual Arts
  Strand 3: Evaluate
  Concept 2: Materials, Tools, and Techniques
  Concept # 2: Materials, Tools, and Techniques:The student will reflect on, and determine how materials, tools, and techniques affect meanings, purposes, and value in artworks.
• Visual Arts
  Strand 3: Evaluate
  Concept 4: Meanings or Purposes
  Concept # 4: Meanings or Purposes: The student will judge an artist’s success in communicating meaning or purpose in their artwork.
• Technology
  Standard 5: Technology Research Tools
  Students utilize technology-based research tools to locate and collect information
  pertinent to the task, as well as evaluate and analyze information from a variety of
  sources.
  
• Technology
  Standard 6: Technology as a Tool for Problem Solving and Decision-making
  Students use technology to make and support decisions in the process of solving
  real-world problems.
• Language Arts Reading
  Strand 3: Comprehending Informational Text
  Students identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the purpose, structures, and elements of expository text.
  
• Language Arts: Listening and Speaking
  Students effectively listen and speak in situations that serve different purposes and involve a variety of audiences.
  • LS-E1. Effectively convey the message through verbal and nonverbal communications with a specific audience
  • LS-E3. Interpret and respond to questions
• Language Arts: Viewing and Presenting
  Students use a variety of visual media and resources to gather, evaluate and synthesize information and to communicate with others.
  • VP-E1. Analyze visual media for language, subject matter and visual techniques used to influence opinions, decision making and cultural perceptions
  • VP-E2. Plan, develop and produce a visual presentation, using a variety of media such as videos, films, newspapers, magazines and computer images
  • VP-E3. Compare, contrast and establish criteria to evaluate visual media for purpose and effectiveness
• Social Studies: Geography
  Concept 1: The World in Spatial Terms
  The spatial perspective and associated geographic tools are used to organize and interpret information about people, places and
  environments.
  • PO-1:Use different kinds of maps to solve problems
  • PO-7: Locate physical features in AZ using maps and other location devices
• Social Studies: Geography
  Concept 4: Human systems and culture, their nature, and their distribution affects societies and the Earth.
  • PO-4: Describe cultural characteristics of Arizona's diverse populations
  • PO-6: Describe elements of culture in areas studied
• Workplace Skills Standards
  • Standard 1: Students use principles of effective oral, written and listening communication skills to make decisions and solve problems.
  • Standard 2: Students apply computation skills and data analysis techniques to make decisions and solve problems.
  • Standard 3: Students apply critical and creative thinking skills to make decisions and solve problems.
  • Standard 4: Students work individually and collaboratively within team settings to accomplish objectives.
  • Standard 7: Students demonstrate technological literacy for productivity in the workplace.