announcer: "brilliant ideas," powered by hyundai motors. narrator: the contemporary art world is vibrant and booming like never before. it is the 21st century phenomenon, a global industry in its own right. "brilliant ideas" looks at the artists at the heart of this. artists with a unique talent to aspire, astonish, provoke, and inspire. artist conrad shawcross.

>> this one comes off the ground. narrator: british artist conrad shawcross is not afraid to think big. as proven by his latest starting project, "dappled light of the sun" at britain's royal academy. in the past decade, he's had the most meteoric career in british contemporary art. he is now the youngest member of the royal academy. >> you can mix things up and use a bit of alchemy and philosophy and a bit of math. narrator: embracing ideas from geometry to philosophy, physics, and metaphysics, he creates works filled with paradox and poetry. >> you can't talk about conrad shawcross at the moment without

framing everything in terms of-- >> i need a bigger hammer, really. >> i think he is the leonardo da vinci of our time. how things were made, how things operated, the mechanizationo of things. >> extraordinary mathematical structure on which this wonderful -- does is ignite the current of ideas about things that spill over way beyond what are conventionally called the confines of art. >> conrad is fearless. he has incredible energy that i sometimes think, my goodness, this young man, he never sleeps. ♪

best known for his mysterious mechanical sculptures, conrad shawcross first came to prominence in 2004 with his brilliantly original work, "the nervous system." in my: i spent 4 months room at creating this helix, forming into a rope very very slowly. it was very much a journey of m trying to understand time. rope can represent time, both linear and cyclical. one of the main highlights describe of the reliance on metaphors-- i was never trying to play around with whimsy. i wanted the machine to feel very rational. it was received incredibly well.

there was nothing like this, the feeling that all of that work paying off. it was fantastic. it led on to the beginning of this sort of journey. ♪ narrator: today, conrad works out of his studio in east london. the son of writers marina water , hisilliam shawcross childhood interests were a sign of what was to come. >> i was surrounded by images of churches. i was never going to -- remember going to the east river and loving it. i didn't really read as much as them. my interests were more in building structures and taking things apart. narrator: in the late 1990's,

conrad attended the ruskin school of art, part of oxford university. conrad: studying in art was key to my practice. we were exposed to all of these subjects, history, and english and poetry, sciences. it was art about art. i became very obsessed with how my car worked. i think my teachers at ruskin were very confused, basically being a mechanic. they said, you can prepare your car as part of your course. -- can't repair your car as part of your course. [laughter] narrator: at the sciences unit one, the rich array of -- science museum in london, the rich array of ideas had a profound impact on conrad. conrad: i would go to science exams a lot as a kid. i would go there for

inspiration. 1960's type ofy display. there beautiful victorian models. narrator: many of his works pay tribute to pioneering figures of the past. one of these is charles babbage, the 19th century polymath regarded as the poly or --clean your of computing. even though his machine, the difference engine, was never completed. conrad: one of the first historical reference works, i put my work in the role of a babbage-like engineer. that if they built this thing, somehow the world with change. the machine had no product, it would just weave and on leave in an infinite loop. if you turn the machine on, it looked like he could crush

itself. it was a static work. it was a bit tough. i was trying to be more sophisticated. i was trying not to make a big spinny, flashy thing. i wanted to create a work about failure. narrator: conrad's extraordinary mechanical sculptures soon brought the attention of one of the most influential thinkers in british art. unusual andwas so that he was informed by science and mathematics. it had a different feel from anything else that i had known before. conrad,oint about whether it's mathematics, art, and science, engineering or design, he's working from the position that this is a unified discourse. conrad: science and art were

originally married to each other. there is a momentum to get them back together again. there is a sense that the arches is irrational and the scientist is rational, therefore they cannot coexist. i don't think it is like that. there is so much irrational and imaginative ideas scientists must make. realng beyond the the invisible, trying to discover. it'ske all great artists, interesting to know what is behind the ideas that somebody is exploring. but i think what he is also able to do is to make very beautiful appreciatet one can anesthetic quality. -- an static quality. it is that layering.

the more you dig, the more you find out. the more eloquent the work becomes. ♪

narrator: conrad shawcross is one of britain's most exciting young artists. exporting -- exploring the putting marriage between art and science, it has varied in different directions. in wiltshire, he's putting the

finishing touches to an exhibition of sculptures. with quitehis name extraordinary mechanical objects. changing to a style of work and the materials that he uses. is the diversity of ideas, the diversity of materials, of forms, that has surprised me about conrad. narrator: the mathematics of music in visual form has become a major theme within conrad's work. ♪ conrad: this is the foremost victorian harmonic graph, which became a victorian novelty at dinner parties. it was actually invented to study the vibrations of buildings in the tube network. it was a most like a seismograph.

it can be used to visualize mathematics. you get to these beautiful forms that emerge from the noise. this is a machine that i made maybe eight years ago. a is a variation on ou-- on harmonic graph. it is a bit wonky because i wasn't interested in creating an exact facsimile. i wanted a discordant seek -- discordancy. narrator: uses the monograph to draw the ratios within a musical court. it has been transformed into three dimension in his manifold sculpture. ♪ conrad: in one way you could describe it as a picture of a chord. it sits on this long stem. time is moving downward. there is a decay factor.

there are visual realizations of a neural experience. i think people will see a different thing in them. i have to surrender control of it. controle work that you of once you have made it is the most interesting. narrator: conrad's exploration of music and form reached a new audience in a recent public commission. it came apart through this tragic sculpture.

publicas this competition. i was lucky enough to win it. they are called "three perpetual chords." they go ad infinitum, never-ending. one of the things i most interested by in her work is this idea of entering into a sculpture, crating this immersion. when i saw photographs, there were a lot of kids with their heads through the hole. even though this is a formal sculpture, kids would use it as an object for play. i wanted to engage with that as an idea.

it's been incredibly well received by people under the age of 7. its become like a total climbing conversation. if you get kids running towards something, you know something is right. works rangenrad's from the playful to be highly conceptual. in his ongoing project named lovelace, court with charles savage, he wants to create any relationship between music and athletic. created a series of musical constants, getting musicians to respond to the robots. instead of the robot responding to music, the music would be subservient to the robot.

[opera singing] conrad: each musician would have to respond to this pre-existing piece of choreography based on number crushing in particular ratios based on ada's work with babbage. lovelace saw the number could represent music, and a number of the alphabet. if you like, that is what conrad is doing here. he is seeing that a number has meaning and significance that goes beyond its quantity. narrator: embracing everything from musical theory to quantum mechanics, conrad's artistic output is becoming ever more vicious. -- more and vicious. his latest project will be his most epic so far.

[cheers]

narrator: over the past decade, british sculptor conrad shawcross has attracted international renown with works from everywhere from it tokyo to pennsylvania, mexico to paris. here in london's royal academy courtyard, he is installing his most ambitious sculpture to date, the "dappled light of the sun." conrad: definitely one of the most epic things we've mad. something concedes --conceded 10 years ago. very long time going. very long to arrive. 8000 pieces, 12 many years, 25 tons of metal.

a massive, massive race to get it done. biggest challenge with the latest all challenge. 0 square feet.2400 once these were assembled, they then the spilled out into the yard. we had to deal with thousands and thousands marching across workshops. the triangles are laser profiled, like russian dolls getting smaller and smaller. 30,000 different triangles put together into 8000 pieaces. that was 20 miles of welding, which took 10 men 4 months to produce. >> okay, can i have a volt, please? -- bolt, please? >> in greek times, it was used as the symbol of the atom. the individual unit of --

indivisible unit of matter. the symbol of order and rationality, but together they are completely chaotic and scary. many children. [laughter] look upverybody have a above? conrad: we are on the fourth day of installing. we are now about to raise the last tower. we have 4 in the air. we are shuffling around to find the right position. keep going around this way. >> we have all this space we are checking. guys to hang on it. welds thatk for any seem to be compromised. 4-5 welds that

should have been better. this is par for the course. i really love doing this bit. and tor: after 4 days nights of intensive work, "dap pled like of the sun" is complete. it, i wasfirst saw completely flummoxed by the way they came together. there are these tendrils and ranges, and it never comes back on itself. form. this plantlike older,s on the edges are and the ones in the center have a younger, radicals sense. you could see these as neural pathways, all sorts of radiant

ideas of growing. in access the kennedy above the courtyard -- as a canopy above the courtyard. you walk underneath it and create this dappled light on the ground. the title refers to the effect it has on the ground, the universal experience we have o sitting under a tree under the summer, feeling like this is a wonderful moment. the shadows become more important with work. it used to be a byproduct of the actual artwork itself. the shadow is actually the end product of the peace. piece.he that refers back to the quotation from a dorothy hodgkins, who was a scientist working in the last century. she pioneered the process called

crystal radiography, which is shining light through crystals. you then look at the silhouettes of those crystals, trying to understand their form. she described the process as trying to work out and retrieve a shadow. we live in the shadows, and we will never be able to see the real tree. that is a nice, very humble metaphor that launches the limits of our potential, how much we will ever be able to know. >> i was really fascinated with the original drawings. to see this develop as an organic project, and seeing that sunlight shading onto the courtyard, that was quite remarkable. to see what conrad wanted to achieve with this structure was fantastic. >> i think it is absolutely

beautiful. i think it's amazing when someone gets so much conviction in their vision and you get to see it with radiance in your life. growing.ou think, it's there are all these triangles growing and growing. will it become a dragon? there all the shapes on the ground. it is really playing between sun, shape, light, sky -- that was interesting to me. ladies came in not so long ago. all this mess was on the floor before we actually elevated it. they look horrified -- what on earth is going on? what is the academy doing? [laughter] and they came back later, it had been elevated.

it became like ancient trees. they then thought, marvelous!. they understood what it was i love that only he could generate that kind of reaction. >> i think the work of the royal academy-- i knew it was going to be a great work when i actually saw it, then i was astounded by not only how monumental it is, but how lyrical it is as well. ithas a kind of likeness to which is very difficult to achieve in sculpture. narrator: conrad shawcross' breathtaking curiosity shows no sign of waning. a fusion of physics, metaphysics, language, and metaphor, his works chisel away at the certainty of knowledge and our assumptions about the world around us. >> conrad is using the materials

of our age at his disposal to create fantastic questions. but there is never an answer with his work, is always a question. >> you have these wonderful, unique movements. it is like stumbling across something for the first time. that moment of realization is great. >> i don't know how conrad does it. i'm not sure how he manages such enormous projects, public commissions, orchestrating at the same time. i think it's a very exciting .ime to see ♪

>> welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." coming up in the cover story, the behind-the-scenes battle over silver energy. in one quarter, elon musk. in the other, warren buffett. the details of this clash of the titans. also, we need chris coxe and taliban is facebook -- and tell you why he is facebook's secret weapon as an alternative to the like button. we will look at how gif is winning the internet. behind-the-scenes of bus inessweek right here on bloomberg television.

♪ >> another great issue of "bloomberg businessweek." asking a provocative question, may be surprising, is the u.s. the new switzerland? for so long the world's wealthy have stashed their money in switzerland and cayman islands, looking for confidentiality and secrecy. now there is a huge market for it in the u.s. people put it in places like reno, nevada. writing about a really interesting phenomenon. for such a long time, walmart has come into communities and put mom-and-pop businesses out of business. now we see walmart, because it ges,raged wages -- raises wa it is beginning to collect. -- beginning to pull out. people having to drive up to 50 miles to get to the grocery store or pharmacy. let's get started.

this week's cover story, and a clash of the titans, at least behind-the-scenes. battle between elon musk's solar company and nevada utility company that happens to be owned by multibillionaire warren buffett. byare joined on the phone noah. before we talk about principles, set the scene for us. talk about the incredible growth in solar energy over the last decade and why we have seen that kind of growth. noah: it is because a couple of reasons. first and foremost, the cost of solar panels has come down dramatically over the past couple of decades. another big reason is that companies like solar city, the elon musk affiliated firm, have come up with innovative ways to help homeowners finance solar panels. they actually have leasing arrangements, wherefore no money down, they will come out and put

panels on your roof. usually you are saving enough on your utility bill that even after you pay solar city, your monthly overall palatal comes down. -- overall power bill comes down. >> elon musk's company has made inroads in nevada. talk about how ccessful they were. they had a lot of people getting solar panels on their. -- their roofs. noah: without a was not one of the first states. -- nevada was not one of the first states. you need the right incentives, and it's took time. once they set up shop, it went crazy. nevada is largely desert. it is a no-brainer. people don't even have that many trees in their yard. in the northeast, people have a tree, and they sent solar city and application.

you can't put panels on your roof because there is too much aid. in nevada, you don't have problems like that. an incredible uptake for most of last year, their fastest-growing market. what you saw happen as a result was the warren buffett owned energy, called nv started flexing its muscles. it lobbied to keep a cap on the number of people that could have solar on their roof and sell power back to the grid. it's a poly-cold net metering. -- policy called net metering. they went through a regulatory process and in december got a ruling favorable to the utility. it makes it hard for solar city to do business in the state. >> since like you have those with solar panels on their roofs. now they are not being used because of the regulatory rules. let's talk about the kind of regulatory muscles that nv

energy was able to flex. they had a huge lobbying campaign. they like any utility, have to stay close to policy numbers. i don't think we saw anything rifferent than what a utility 4 incumbent business would do. they just did it very well. they were able to persuade lawmakers and later regulators to come around to their site. -- their side. that those that put solar panels on the roof not paying their fair share to upkeep the great. they have these new fees in place in nevada that make it more expensive to go solar. it's not that you can't, it's just that it's much more expensive now. >> this puts nevada in a funny position. it encourages all these people to get solar panels, in on the other hand, they are rejecting that. they are siding with this

utility. noah: the common phrase i heard was bait and switch. it is a loaded term. tehe solar industry is trying to politicize this whole thing. a lot of people feel like they were promised incentives and now the rules are being changed. >> we talked about the lobbying. a lot of people are upset about the potential for changes. they have tried to protest. how did that play out? noah: about 2 weeks ago i was at a utility commission hearing. not the kind of event you would expect a lot of people to show up at, but a lot of people were there. mark ruffalo, the actor, showed up to say that the state had erred in passing these new rates

to rooftop solar people. it's an interesting story. some people are legitimately mad. areanies like solar city trying to promote that backlash because it's in their commercial interest to do so. >> your write there are homeowners that feel like they have been undermined. noah: yes, definitely. i talked with one homeowner, for instance, who refinanced his house before solar city showed up. it cost him $48,000 to put panels on his roof. he basically treated this as an investment for his retirement. he knew he would bring down his power bills. he would have more certainty about the energy he was consuming. he basically told me he is waiting to see how these new rates shake out. he does not want to retire until he has a good handle.

that may seem odd for folks that don't have steep power bills, but in nevada in the summer, sometimes people can pay hundreds of dollars to run their air conditioners at homes in the middle of that desert heat. >> noah, what does this mean for solar cities business model? is no longer profitable for them to do business in nevada? noah: first off, they are not a profitable company. they are growing fast. about $350 million in annual revenue. they said these new rates make it so they cannot do business in a nevada. they have stopped installation. workers laying off 550 that were involved in sales in the state. so yes, they basically view these new rates as a complete hindrance to business in a nevada. >> you can read more about the cover story in the latest

edition of "bloomberg businessweek" available on newsstands and on bloomberg.com. facebook is looking to the future, and mark zuckerberg turning who is secret weapon -- to his secret weapon for results. chris coxe, and plans to move facebook forward. details when "bloomberg businessweek" returns.

>> will come back to "bloomberg businessweek." he is facebook's secret weapon. he is chris coxe, promoted to chief product officer inmate 14. he joined facebook in 2005 and create the newsfeed. it has remade the way we like the world. sarah frier tells us that is

about to change. she joins us from san francisco. hey sarah. talk about what chris coxe has wanted to do, the like but in so emblematic of facebook. reportedly it is going away. sarah: it's not going away, it's just getting some companions. we have all become to liking things on facebook. we use it for every kind of situation. what facebook is starting to realize is that as people share a diversity of things on facebook, that is included, they needed something that was more apathetic -- more empathetic. "like" an't have to natural disaster or attack. chris coxe xoma forefront of coming up with alternatives for the "like" button.

among them are angry and sad but also "wow" and "haha" and "love." waits for people to express themselves that go beyond the thumbs-up sign. >> you wrote about the genesis of this. how did it go over when chris coxe proposed it? sarah: people have been trying to battle this for a while. facebook users have long called for a dislike button. but facebook thought that kind of solution would make the whole experience too negative, like upvoting and downvoting people. who has guided, facebook to be a bit more cautious about their product testing. had a way of approaching this that was a bit easier for

people, or might be easier for people to understand. it's only rolled out in a few countries now, but will soon be rolling out around the world. >> introduces to chris coxe. his role in the company is to be the standardbearer for for empathy, to look at how innovations and changes might be greeted by those who use facebook. how does he fit into the management hierarchy? sarah: as mark zuckerberg expands his range, they have a big portfolio. oculus, what's up, messenger, internet.org, service that includes a set of internet drones that use lasers to deliver coverage to people in remote parts of the world. zuckerberg is talking to foreign leaders around the world, barack obama. chris coxe is the guy in menlo park dealing with facebook on a day-to-day basis. he is running the big blue app.

of respect lately to be zuckerberg's command to be the voice of the user, the person coming up wh how to tweak the product on a regular basis. >> listening to you mentioned those facets of facebook, a lot of these are complementary things, not of facebook proper. this is a comedy that tries to innovate before it tries to change. it's not always been successful. chris collins has been behind some of the changes that have not worked out. sarah: there was the redesigned, the newsfeed that got canned. newsfeed's introduction itself, uses the. seem to care for it -- users did not seem to care for it. what chris has brought to the table as a product officer is a way of testing products -- they

have a panel of 100- users0 that rate their newsfeed stories around the day. they interview people in their homes about how they use case. they have product testingsites on campus where they observe evil using apps. -- they observe people using apps. its much more researched now. they are very careful with what they decide to release and how they think about rolling it out. they don't have green presentations about their new products the weight they used to . and said that they are doing it in a scientific, measured way. twitter as covered well. it's not called liking, but favoring. andt the same amount eagerness to test of that over at twitter? sarah: i think twitter is under

a different kind of pressure. facebook may feel very the holden to its users. twitter is in a position where usersto attract many new in order to satisfy its investors hungry for growth. twitter has a time time pressure with their products, including the heart vs favorite. they are trying to make it easier to sign ufor twitter. making it easier to find out what is going on on the site. some basic things that would help them get up to the level where facebook already is. >> wh is the metric of success? like button -- what would be the mark of succeeding? sarah: it is whether people use the product more. people use facebook and its

companion apps more than 40 minutes a day. it is really quite incredible. -- if that's time spent goes up or down, chris and his team will now whether they have a great success or a great mistake on their hands. if it reduces time on facebook, they might have to rollback the change. we will see. >> coming up, we go tohe back of the book for this week's etc. section. giphy, and how two guys made it happen. when "bloomberg businessweek" continues.

david: will come back.

a lot of off-season turnover in the legal legend championship series. the most competitive league for competitive video gaming. big team changes big and small. some come from the pro sports industry. what happened when real sports money moves into videogame sports? for the uninitiated, what are e-sports? what is it exactly? competitive video games. many are set up to compete against your friends. it developed into a thing where you play against strangers. than he played against strangers for money. it developed naturally. >> and people are watching this. there is money here. >> absolutely. legendsue of championship series is played in front of a live audience. it is streamed online. people watch it on twitch.tv.

david: you mentioned we are in an early stage of development. how long have been people playing games professionally? >> even in the 1980's, there was a movie about the nintendo world championships. that was over 25 years ago. it has been around for a while. but it has taken off in the last couple years. largely because of these large online audiences. people are used to live streaming things. that had a takeoff from there. >> how useful is the parallel to professional sports? is there a lot of fanfare, excitement around these games? have you get these people watching to pay attention? joshua: there is an obvious parallel. these are events that happen regularly. they do have fans. people are into certain players. there are seasons and things like that. as a business, it has been funny to watch them struggle with. it's not an exact metaphor.

but there are such obvious parallels. like, should we do exactly what the nfl has done on a small scale, or do we need to figure out some other way to do it? david: take us to one of the competitions. what does it look like? basically, in league of legends, it is a team of 5 guys. they are usually skinny young men wearing t-shirts. david: i was going to ask how old they are. joshua: it is a young man's sport. normally there is a coach with them who wears a suit, usually one of their first suits. they sit down in a row of computers and quietly play videogames. they have headsets on, so they are talking to one another. about them is a large screen showing what is happening. the fans are mostly reacting to taht, with easy on the screen. david: howland to these games last? -- how long do these games last?

is it like a cricket match, days at a time? joshua: no in the most recent series, one that lasted about 18 minutes. they normally go longer than day. a day accommodation is stacked -- day of come addition is stacked with back-to-back games. you bring your own food and stay all day. david: let's look at the back of the book stories and "bloomberg businessweek." let's begin with the cover story. first, let's settle a debate. "jif" vs "gif" what do you say? the company is very adamant gif-y" notonounced " "jif" like the peanut butter. >> to me about giphy, what do

they do? >> they are essentially a library for .gifs. they are in indispensable resource if you need to text your friend the perfect .gif that will sum up your emotions. that is essentially the function. they work with a lot of big-name brands like subway, the nda, hbo, -- nba, hbo,m victoria's secret, helping them use the .gif as a comedic asian tool. -- communication tool. long video loop. nothing more than that. it was popularized the time when people were building myspace paces. it was a way to personalize your page. it died off when myspace died off. but a lot of news sites like buzz feed have been using the .gif to tell stories.

they have been popularized again through that. david: is giphy making these images? how is it getting them? >> it does make some. tv producers and movie studios will make sure their moveies are gif-able. but they are also scouring the internet to make sure that they fall within their index. they also spend a lot of time making sure no nudity gets on the site. ?avid: what makes a good .gif >> i think the ability to tell a story very quickly, or to sum up a feeling, in the same way that you would might text someone an emoji. it is like next level emoji. david: you mentioned committees are working with giphy. -- companies are working with g

iphy. >> they have a lot of funding right now, more than $20 million. they were given $1 million by a company heavily involved in kickstarter. they are focused on growth, not revenue. they could certainly put ads on pages. .gif, theya cat could certainly show you cat food. but they know that users are fickle, and they don't want them to be turned off by that. david: thank you so much. that does it for this week's "bloomberg businessweek" on television. the latest issue of "bloomberg businessweek" featuring the cover story on elon musk and warren buffett's solar powered battle is available online and on newsstands. we will see you next week right here on bloomberg television. the only way to get better is to challenge yourself,

and that's what we're doing at xfinity. we are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. and this includes our commitment to being on time. every time. that's why if we're ever late for an appointment, we'll credit your account $20. it's our promise to you. we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around.

♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: super bowl 50 will kick off on sunday, february 7th, at levi's stadium in santa clara, california. carolina panthers will face off against afc's denver broncos. the game features the nfl's best defense in denver against the league's likely m.v.p., quarterback cam newton. after an injury-plagued season, the broncos quarterback peyton manning pursues his second super bowl title. there is speculation that this could be the final game in peyton manning's storied career.