Sci-Fi Mutates From Film to Gallery

Argentine painter Fabian Marcaccio and Los Angeles architect Greg Lynn are fascinated by the idea of evolution.

So they’ve created their own mutant art project, “The Predator,” which fuses traditional painting techniques with computer-generated, three-dimensional architectural renderings.

“The Predator” is a 30-foot long, 10-foot high, room-sized installation that looks like an enormous wormy organism coiled at UC Irvine’s University Art Gallery. It opens today. The two artists began collaborating on the pseudo sci-fi art experiment a year ago as resident artists at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University.

Each wrestled with how to break through the limitations of his respective field. Marcaccio has long questioned the proper surfaces for his paintings. Lynn heads the Los Angeles-based architecture firm FORM. Using computers, he generates warped or fluid forms, producing architectural effects--skins, facades and support structures.

Their shared interest in melding painting and architecture began in Vienna, Austria, with “The Tingler,” an installation shown at the Secession Gallery. The title is borrowed from a classic B-rated horror movie of the same name. (“The Predator” is named after the Arnold Schwarzenegger film.)

A traveling installation, “The Predator” will make its West Coast debut in Irvine. Jeanie Weiffenbach, director of the University Art Gallery and Beall Center for Art and Technology, arranged for the work to come to Southern California. The project was organized by Jeffrey Kipnis, curator of architecture and design at the Wexner Center.

“In ‘The Predator,’ the artists took two artistic species and bred them,” Kipnis said. “It’s impish, but the technology of filmmaking can create effects that inspire. Every medium looks to other mediums for ideas. It makes life connected in ways we don’t realize.”

The translucent, voluptuous, yet grotesque form was designed digitally and constructed from formed plastic that has been silkscreened and painted. Lighted from the outside, the structure appears to throb with life. A custom music mix by DJ Spooky accompanies the piece.

The optical effects in the 1987 Schwarzenegger movie inspired the artists, but the relationship is loose. “We wanted to use the camouflage device in the movie to create a three-dimensional situation,” Marcaccio said. “It can be considered a walk-through painting or an architectural space.”

Inside “The Predator,” clusters of colors and images play on the idea of evolution, from primitive plants to signs of urban culture to pixels symbolic of the digital revolution. “I like the idea that we can evolve into a new thing by cross-pollinating our interests and techniques,” Marcaccio said.

‘The Predator,’ University Art Gallery, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, UC Irvine, 712 Arts Plaza/101 HTC, Irvine. An artists’ talk begins at 2 p.m. Sunday. A reception follows from 3 to 6 p.m. Free. Ends Nov. 18. (949) 824-6206.