“Lossy/Lossless,” an installation by Associate Professor McLain Clutter and Assistant Professor Cyrus Peñarroyo, is opening March 9 at Materials & Applications (M&A) in Los Angeles.

The installation for M&A’s new storefront on Sunset Boulevard casually assembles a handful of the iconic street’s past and future objects. A custom-made tableau wraps the walls with markers of the boulevard’s history, as well as signifiers of its nascent gentrification. Piles of tires from a bygone flat-fix co-mingle with newly installed bike racks. Some elements appear ghostly and translucent while others are willfully pixelated, each caught in a moment of disappearance or loss. Tiers of raised floors and custom foam padding fills the storefront, ready to accommodate any activity. Hard tectonics of data tiles merge with the collage of images, projecting a future entry to the Sunset tableau.

Clutter and Peñarroyo are partners at EXTENTS, an Ann Arbor-based design firm, and they were assisted on the installation by Lucas Denit, a dual-degree M.Arch/M.S. student.  Materials & Applications is a Los Angeles-based art and architecture exhibition space whose exhibitions typically take the form of outdoor, public installations and one-to-one architecture.

Learn more about “Lossy/Lossless” and the installation opening at materialsandapplications.org/events/2019/3/8/lossylossless.