Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center supports digital art.

nmipublications
Aug 19, 2015
2 min read

The Williamson Translational Research Building at the Dartmouth-Htichcock Medical Center supports digital installation art. It commissioned a major digital painting embedded in heat-molded resin as the primary work in the entrance atrium for their newly constucted building.

Translational research is all about translating discoveries made in research labs into better, safer care for patients, and then bringing lessons learned in the clinic back to the investigators. Translational research has become a major focus because of the promise that recent biomedical advances. By bringing investigators from multiple disciplines together in the same building, they hope it will stimulate collaborations and discovery.

"Chrysopoeia" means transmutation into gold.

“Chrysopoeia”.by digital artist, Gloria King Merritt, is a portrait of the transition from the chaos of dynamical instability to predictability and organization. It is modeled on the quest to bring forth the “gold” of innovation, inspiration, insight, and invention from the chaos of nonlinear dynamical systems.

The relationship between the sudden genius of inspiration and the perspiration of preparation leads to breakthroughs, unifying apparently disparate and unconnected phenomenon, leading to the success of the relationship between researchers and clinicians at the Williamson Translational Research Building.

This work of art advances discourse around the convergence of art and science, and promotes a fertile environment for successful translational advancement.

The concept of the installation is based on the path between the unknown source and the wonder of creation. It is expressed in the translation between dark to light, chaos to pattern, the particle to the wave, from the “big bang” to the green and gold of healthy life on earth.

The image is born in cold, dark space that then moves through annealing heat, displaying the green of new life, with incorruptible gold.

The proposal and plan for the artwork was begun more than a year ago, when the building was under construction.

Digital renderings and models were presented with the proposal.

Chysopeoia is 32 feet long and 4 feet high, with each panel weighing about 100 pounds. It was important to calculate weight and plan structural support for the installation prior to finishing the construction. The artist proposed using a resin media that would accomodate the fire, safety and maintainance requirements of a medical and research building.

Fabrication is a very important aspect of an installation and supervision of each step is required to guarantee sucessful delivery of the artwork, on time and on budget.