1.78 Beverly Hills

1.78 Beverly Hills, a sculpture in Janet Echelman’s Earthtime Series, was installed in August, 2019 between the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts and Beverly Gardens Park as part of the city’s annual BOLD Summer festival. Titled “1.78,” the sculpture is a contemplation about the interconnectedness of all of us - human beings and the natural world. The form of the artwork is inspired by a scientific data set that records the interconnection of a shift in time of the earth’s rotation (the length of a single day) and the surface of the ocean. Echelman was contemplating the fact that our earth’s rotation is not fixed, so our system of measuring time cannot be fixed either. In this constantly shifting reality, there are a myriad of other earth systems that are constantly changing, and our human actions are interwoven into this complex network.

The monumental floating form of 1.78 is composed of layers of fiber, braided and knotted together in vibrant hues that pulse with changing wind and weather to create a choreography of undulating color. At night, the sculpture comes to life with projected colored light. Lightswitch worked with the artist Ms. Echelman to bring her vision for the night time aesthetic of her project to life. It was important to balance not only the need to perfectly illuminate Ms. Echelman’s work, but also ensure safety for the busy traffic on Santa Monica Blvd, a major Beverly Hills thoroughfare.

We were honored to help bring such an important work to life at night, and collaborate with Ms. Echelman. The piece was widely acclaimed and enjoyed, and the artists sums the work up perfectly – ‘I feel a need to find moments of contemplation in the midst of daily city life,’ Echelman said. ‘If my art can create an opportunity to contemplate the larger cycles of time and remind us to listen to our inner selves, I believe this could be transformative.’

photos courtesy Janet Echelman