Kalliplokamos

Generative sculpture made from steel, chicken wire, PVC tubing, UV lights, fluid circulation machinery, and a category C truck.

What

Meet Kalliplokamos — a 3-metre-tall sculpture woven from 2km of PVC tubing. Glowing UV colors run through its body, driven by a system of water pumps and compressed air.

Kalliplokamos, a 3-metre glowing UV figure woven from PVC tubing, standing in the dark.
Video
Detail

Glowing fluids circulate through a network of tube-woven, inner-body geometries, abstractly describing hormonal travel through the organism as emotions are experienced. Through the phenomenal chaos, refined patterns emerge, and musically controlled machine sounds dominate the surrounding space.

Close-up of the sculpture's head, a dense tangle of glowing green and orange tubing.
Close-up of woven PVC tubing glowing green and orange under UV light.
Another angle of the glowing tube-woven geometries inside the sculpture's body.
Amber light glowing at the sculpture's core, seen through the dense wire and tubing frame.
Fluid system

Glass jars of UV-reactive fluid feed the tubing network, circulated by water pumps and compressed air to keep the colors moving through the body.

Jars of UV-reactive fluid connected by glowing tubing to the sculpture's circulation system.
Circulation

Behind the scenes, a bank of pumps and DMX-controlled valves keeps the fluid moving through the tubing, timed to the piece's musically controlled machine sounds.

Row of solenoid valves with looping tubes, feeding fluid into the sculpture's circulation system.
Overhead view of the control room: fluid jars, tubing, and DMX decoders wired up backstage.
On tour

Kalliplokamos lives and travels in the cargo space of a category C truck, unloaded and lit up wherever it goes.

Kalliplokamos glowing inside the open cargo hold of its category C truck at night.