To anyone new here, I am blogging this year about a San Francisco experience called “Illuminate SF” which is a “celebration of the ability of light art to transform our most familiar spaces and an opportunity to turn the long nights of winter into an inspiring time to visit San Francisco.” It has been going on for 10 years now and the installations I am focusing on are the ones that have become permanent fixtures around the city.

“Seeing Spheres” was designed by Olafur Eliasson and is his largest public artwork display in the United States. It consists of five polished hydroformed steel spheres that are 15-1/2 feet tall. Each sphere has a flat, circular mirrored face framed by a ring of LED lights oriented inward to reflect the mirrored faces of the surrounding spheres.

Per the Illuminate SF description, this is supposed to produce an “environment of multilayered reflected spaces in which the same people and settings appear again and again, visible from various unexpected angles. Tunnel-like sets of nested reflections open up in the mirrors, repeating countless times and disappearing into the distance.”

Unfortunately while the spheres are still there, they are not reflecting at the moment due to vandalism so that explains why I didn’t see anything when I stood in front of them. I didn’t read about the vandalism until I was doing the research for this post. It’s too bad people can’t control themselves and not ruin it for others.

Best Viewing: After dusk, located on the triangular plaza in front of the East entrance to Chase Center, 1 Warriors Way. The big round balls are still interesting, reflective or not.

Okay folks, thanks for coming along on this journey with me. Make sure to come back tomorrow because I have a real treat for the letter “P!”