Solid Objects extends Gaviria’s engagement with the early history of computer graphics, specifically Ivan Sutherland’s pioneering program Sketchpad, developed in 1963 at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. The first software to enable interactive computer drawing, Sketchpad is widely recognized as a foundational moment in computer-aided design. Among its demonstrations were a series of three-dimensional illustrations manipulated by Lawrence Roberts, one of Sutherland’s colleagues, on the TX-2 computer’s small cathode-ray tube screen. In Solid Objects, Gaviria recreates these figures (two overlapping three-dimensional shapes) at monumental, architectural scale, transforming a fleeting computational exercise into a sculptural gesture that seems to ask, with a measure of irony: what would it mean to build a monument to a computer program?
