Micro-Meld is a public art installation on the campus of the University of Southern California. The exterior sculpture is composed of laser cut and bent steel sheets. The large, vertical weathering steel elements are static while the smaller, white, steel elements spanning between them are a result of an interactive process spanning the time of the installation.

Challenging the traditional spatial and informational notions of library, Micro-Meld merges ideas of public art, information dissemination and interactive play by providing a space that is composed and controlled by students. Individual folded metal pieces offer a myriad of ways to attach to each other and to a structural framework. Students are invited to write on any part of the pieces. Over the course of the installation the textual interventions of the students accumulate supposing a collaborative process in the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge and meaning. Within the context of the university, this subverts the image of the library as a building containing books and gives agency to students in the production of knowledge.

This exterior public art sculpture is part of the University of Southern California Visions & Voices Art and Humanities Initiative and is a joint venture between the School of Architecture and the USC Library Division.

Collaborators