Photos courtesy of Brian Harper/CA Rampworks.
UPDATE | On Thursday, artist Steve Harrington’s Skateable Sculptures were moved from their original site at the public skate course at the Dew Tour to Silverado Skatepark in Long Beach.
“I’ve never done anything close to this,” said Harrington in an interview with Dew Tour. “I feel like it’s unique because it’s really designed to be experienced moving through. When you’re skateboarding you’re truly experiencing your surroundings and this project was really about enhancing that environment.”
The snake and open-mouth sculpture certainly brighten up the park, and present new obstacles for skatepark goers to try out.
PREVIOUSLY: Dew Tour Sculpture Garden and Lightwave Technology Encompass The Art of Skateboarding
Photo courtesy of Mountain Dew.
6/19/17 at 3:59PM | Dew Tour athletes and guests alike were able to experience not only the impressive athleticism of skateboarding, but the art of the professional sport through electrodermal technology and a sculpture garden skate park during the four-day event which ended Sunday.
Top skaters, including Mountain Dew athletes Sean Malto and Curren Caples, donned wearable devices that measured their heart rate, blood volume pulse, skin temperature, electrodermal activity and motion. In partnership with Mountain Dew, Lightwave then analyzed the data to create the first-of-its-kind art exhibition, “The Art of Doing,” displaying said data with code-based visuals, transforming the feelings of competing during the Dew Tour into colorful motion graphics unique to each athlete.
“Lightwave’s aim is to capture the emotion of the world’s most culturally and socially significant events,” Rana June, CEO of Lightwave, said in a statement. “This year’s Dew Tour provides an exemplary use case of our technology because we’re able to reveal deep emotional insights into the thrill of competition and visualize them in a brand-new way.”
Photo courtesy of Mountain Dew of professional skateboarder Sean Malto.
A study by Lightwave found that 80 percent of the sponsored athletes competing during the tour believe their skate performances are as much of an art form as it is a professional sport, according to Lightwave.
“The technology that Mountain Dew and Lightwave used to create ‘The Art of Doing’ at Dew Tour is incredible,” Malto said in a statement. “It’s really cool to see my emotions while skateboarding come to life visually!”
Photo courtesy of Mountain Dew. Professional skateboarder Chris Colbourn attends the Long Beach Dew Tour Media Event at Long Beach Convention Center Thursday. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Mountain Dew)
The Dew Tour’s aesthetic was created by Los Angeles-based artist Steve Harrington, who recently finished works for MLSE LaunchPad, where youth facing barriers can get involved with sports to realize their potential, as well as Nike.
Harrington, alongside Mountain Dew athletes Jordan Maxham and Chris Colbourn, also designed and painted the public skate course, or the “sculpture garden,” which was constructed by California Ramp Works, the same team that built the official contest course. The sculpture garden was open to the public to skate throughout the tour, where amateurs and professionals alike took to skating up and over Harrington’s lively icons.
Photo by Asia Morris.
The mouth and snake sculpture are set to be donated and relocated to Silverado Skatepark in Long Beach by June 22, pending final approval from City Council, according to Dew Tour spokesperson Melissa Gullotti.