Derek Sola
Signage is a defining characteristic of Las Vegas where all the glittering light and brilliant colors celebrate the pulse of the city. It sets the tone for our experiences and becomes a backdrop to our memories and events. The expression of light and representation of meaning has always captured my curiosity. How it is recorded is even more intriguing.
LIGHTSPACES is attributed to my unavoidable run-ins with neon signage in Las Vegas. Equipped only with a 35 mm camera, black and white film and a tripod, the objects we tend to ignore during the day transforms when illuminated at night. Here traditional photography is reinvented where multiple, scattered city sites are collapsed into a single spatial composition. The result is an expression of simultaneity where light bears new meaning in relation to an overlapping of sequences.
Education
Southern California Institute of Architecture
Master of Architecture, 1998
Los Angeles, California
University of Illinois at Urbana / Champaign
Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies, 1994
Champaign, Illinois
Solo Exhibit
200 Feet Over 7 Years IS Contemporary Art Gallery, 2009 Las Vegas, Nevada
Publications
A+U, Architecture and Urbanism, May 2006
“Implementing Architecture – The Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology”
ARCHIS, January 1997
“Kant’s Categories as Matrix – Monolith”, an analysis of Livio Vacchini
Lectures
Cornell University, March 2005
“The Project Architect: Implementing Design”, Architecture Symposium Guest Speaker
University of California, Berkley, October 2004
“The Metal Walls of the M.I.T. Stata Center”, Guest Speaker