I See The Light

What is Light?

Light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength that is visible to the eye, or in a more general sense, any electromagnetic radiation in the range from infrared to ultraviolet. The three basic dimensions of light (and of all electromagnetic radiation) are:
• intensity (or brilliance or amplitude, perceived by humans as the brightness of the light),
• frequency (or wavelength, perceived by humans as the colour of the light), and
• polarization (or angle of vibration and not perceivable by humans under ordinary circumstances)
Due to wave-particle duality, light simultaneously exhibits properties of both waves and particles.

What have I noticed?

The most exciting bit of light for me is how we can control it for any mood any emotion and any space. I feel light is space in itself. A space that can be altered, adjusted according to our need. A simple way of doing so is the way its been done on the south bank where a translucent piece of glass is placed on the front as a protector for the light bulb. Since the light is located on the side wall a normal piece of glass would do the job but the light would be too sharp for the people walking past. Having said that the translucent glass piece diminishes the amount of light that passes through it. Hence despite peaceful to the eye the light is not enough.
see the very basic difference in the diagrams below:

The above example shows you the difference between open and controlled light. The difference between the output just by placing a piece of glass changes drastically. It does not travel as far as it can.

Since I wanted to explain what I mentioned earlier in detail I did the following experiment where I observed the movement of light:

United Visual Artists

Established in 2003, UnitedVisualArtists are an art and design practice based in London. UVA produce work at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, live performance, moving image and digital installation.
UVA’s team members come from many disciplines including fine art, architecture, communication design, moving image, computer science and engineering.
The cross-pollination of diverse skills inspires new fields of exploration, which is core to
their ethos.
Pushing the boundaries of research, software and engineering with every project, UVA’s work aims above all to be meaningful and engaging.

My Opinion:

UVA's work has helped me in thinking about adding new materials for my experiments. I have been working towards developing a series of laser light experiments and my entire research has helped me understand that lights and projections are not merely limited by screens or walls. I am focusing to bring out the engineer in me and with a few small artistic electronic advancements I wish to build a series of different visual experiences. Since I am at the stage of understanding the mechanism of projectors, lights and laser equipment I am unaware of how I will conduct these experiments but i'm sure I'll shortly be able to come up with something grand.

Till such time enjoy the master pieces of these artists -

Volume - United Visual Artists

Volume is a sculpture of light and sound, an array of light columns positioned dramatically in the centre of the garden.
Volume responds spectacularly to human movement, creating a series of audio-visual experiences. Step inside and see your actions at play with the energy fields throughout the space, triggering a brilliant display of light and sound.

Speed Of Light - United Visual Artists

Speed of Light celebrates the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK. Stripped back to its essentials, optical fibre is a thin strand of glass, with nothing more than a flickering beam of light traveling along it. United Visual Artists have used this beam as the starting point for the work.

Canopy - United Visual Artists

Inspired by the experience of walking through the dappled light of a forest, Canopy is a 90-metre long light sculpture spanning the front facade of the building, using mass production and precise fabrication to evoke and reflect nature. Thousands of identical modules, their form abstracted from the geometry of leaves, are organised in a non-repeating growth pattern.

During the day, apertures in the modules filter natural light to the street below. After dusk, particles of artificial light are born, navigate through the grid and die, their survival determined by regions of energy sweeping across the structure. The result simultaneously recalls the activity of cells within a leaf, leaves in a forest canopy, or a city seen from the air.

Materials - Powder coated steel, anodised aluminium, injection moulded polycarbonate, LED, Code
Dimensions - 90 metres x 3 metre

What a performance- Jean michelle Jarre

Jean-Michel André Jarre (August 24, 1948, Lyon, France) is a French composer of electronic music. Also a composer of film music, he has written the scores to films such as Lawrence Of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago among many others. He is well-known for staging spectacular outdoor concerts of his music, which feature laser displays and fireworks, three of which appeared in the Guinness Book of Records for their large audiences.

What I personally like about his work is how he transforms a space into a themed musical where the space becomes a part of the music and all this is achieved with just lights, projections and fireworks. Simple yet jaw dropping!

Some of his works that inspire me:

Houston - A City In Concert - 1986

The concert in Houston April 5 1986 is often considered a milestone in Jean Michel Jarre’s career. The concert took place in the shadow of the deaths of the seven astronauts who had exploded along with the Challenger space shuttle, one of them, Ron McNair, a friend of Jarre’s. The event was broadcast on TV all over the world and made Jarre a concert legend.

The occasion for the concert was the 150th anniversary of the city of Houston and the 25th anniversary of NASA, and the entire skyline of Houston formed the backdrop for the gigantic show. Huge sheets of canvas covered the skyscrapers which were used as screens for laser and light projections synchronised to the music and fireworks displays. The concert attracted an audience of around 1.3 million people.

Concert For Tolerance - 1995

In 1993, Jarre was appointed by the UN, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, for his ongoing contribution to the Arts & Entertainment and for his energy and talent in highlighting various local cultural aspects in his performances around the globe. On Bastille Day 1995, in front of the Eiffel Tower, in the centre of Paris, he conceived and performed his “Concert for Tolerance”, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. The concert began with a flyover of the concert area, Champs de Mars, by French Army’s prestigious Patrouille de France. The Eiffel Tower had never been so artistically lit : this incited the French Government to give the capital’s landmark a permanent new lighting effect for the Millennium and which contiues today.

The concert offered many of Jarre’s greatest hits, but also some less well-known work, such as Industrial Revolution. The general theme, Tolerance, was clearly expressed in the giant visual projections, and also with the presence alongside Jarre of Khaled, a megastar in the Arab world.

Paris - La Défense - 1990

The French National Day 1990 celebration marked the closing of the festivities celebrating the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. Jarre conceived a gigantic concert for Paris’ downtown, modern business quarters.

La Defense, it must be said, formed the perfect background, not simply because of its futuristic character, but also because of the tall skyscrapers, von Spreckelsen's new Arc de Triomphe and steel monoliths which line the horizon visible from the centre of the city. Jarre designed a pyramid-shaped stage to fit the geometrical architecture of the setting where he performed with his musicians, a classical Arab ensemble (France’s second largest community), and others including a choir, a steel-drum band and gigantic dancing puppets of various kinds. The entire show was synchronised and illuminated by 65 tons of fireworks, as well as laser and light projections on the tall buildings. For over two hours Jarre enchanted yet another record live audience of 2.5 million people, and most of Paris was replete with electronic sounds and a sea of light on this festive July summer evening.

The Twelve Dreams Of The Sun (Bells)- 2000

The Twelve Dreams Of The Sun was a concert held by musician Jean Michel Jarre on the Pyramids of Giza, Egypt starting on December 31, 1999 and carrying overnight to January 1, 2000. It was attended by 120,000 people. The concert consisted of two parts, the Main Concert and a Sunrise Concert. The concert cost approximately $9,500,000 and it originated when Jean-Michel Jarre was contacted by the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak with a special project to celebrate the dawn of the new Millennium at the foot of the only remaining monument of the original 7 Wonders of the World - the Great Pyramids.

Jarre's team had developed giant projections to be displayed on the faces of the Great Pyramids, however a heavy cloud of fog made the pyramids almost invisible, so most of the projections were discarded. Parts of the concert were broadcast live on TV stations around the world.

After all this research on artists who work with lights and projections and understanding how a space can change, maintaining its current atmosphere through Jean Michelle Jarre's work, I'd like to perform a few experiments of my own with laser's, lights and projections to see what I can achieve as individual pieces in themselves which may become a part of the site at a later stage.

Works by Anthony McCall

British artist Anthony McCall has a cross-disciplinary practice in which film, sculpture, installation, drawing and performance overlap. McCall was a key figure in the avant-garde London Film-makers Co-operative in the 1970s and his earliest films are documents of outdoor performances that were notable for their minimal use of the elements, most notably fire.
Below are some examples of his work that have really inspired me.

Between you and I:

Line Describing a Cone:

Works by Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research. Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The Weather Project in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London.

Eliasson has engaged in a number of projects in public space, including the intervention Green river, carried out in various cities between 1998 and 2001; the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007, London.
Below is a particular piece by him that I really like, called "Your Making Things Explict"-2009

Round Rainbow:

The Weather Project- Tate Modern:

Seeing Yourself Seeing:

Other Works:

Works by Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist. For more than three decades, he (1933-1996) vigorously pursued the artistic possibilities of fluorescent light. The artist radically limited his materials to commercially available fluorescent tubing in standard sizes, shapes, and colors, extracting banal hardware from its utilitarian context and inserting it into the world of high art. The resulting body of work at once possesses a straightforward simplicity and a deep sophistication.

Dan Flavin's "Untitled (To You, Heiner, With Admiration and Affection)" in the atrium of the National Gallery in Washington.

In Dan Flavin retrospective at the National Gallery in Washington: "Untitled (In Honor of Harold Joachim)," from 1977.

Dan Flavin's "Icon V (Coran's Broadway Flesh)," from 1962.

Constructed Lights and other works: