Electronic lighting as an art form is a fairly recent phenomenon, starting a continuum from the 1960’s with Robert Smithson pioneering use of a flickering neon light to confound the eye; Dan Flavin’s “painting” of spaces with fluorescent illumination; Bruce Nauman’s resonating designed signage, which he continues to create; and more recently Olafur Eliasson's projects in light seen in the spring of 2008 at the Museum of Modern Art.
Now a new work of art that continues to expand this new artistic medium has just been inaugurated in the entrance way of the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City: Leni Schwendinger’s “A Spatial Portrait.”
“A Spatial Portrait” is a subtitle work that calls for discovery, then revelation. The piece uses a series of suspended frames that contain a series of lighting fixtures that suspend rows lights above the large entrance hall. It fills the space with a geometric mass that seems to shift shape, depending on the vantage points that change the spatial arrangements of the construction’s components. The fluid change of colors allows the work to shift further and to be potentially dismissed by the ticket holder walking under or past the lighting arrangement on his or way to a more official exhibit.
However it is the passing visitor who provides “A Spatial Portrait” with its subject and ability to respond. As an individual visitor passes below the construction, sensors recognize the person’s presence and lights outline and mark the individual’s passage below. If more than one person or groups move toward one another, the work breaks into an explosion of lights.
And if a visitor passes to the left of the piece toward the first exhibit hall and stops at a specific location, cameras will capture an image of that individual and feed both colors and shape into the grid of lights, causing “the spatial portrait,” where the subject’s presence is sketched in the lighting grid: showing a cloud of bright color followed by an eerie brief shadow of the subject.
The result is a art work that uses the current technologies to create an object of light that responds to the presence of an observer, participant, and subject. It is the beginning of a new level of artistic experimentation and potential expression.
Now a new work of art that continues to expand this new artistic medium has just been inaugurated in the entrance way of the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City: Leni Schwendinger’s “A Spatial Portrait.”
“A Spatial Portrait” is a subtitle work that calls for discovery, then revelation. The piece uses a series of suspended frames that contain a series of lighting fixtures that suspend rows lights above the large entrance hall. It fills the space with a geometric mass that seems to shift shape, depending on the vantage points that change the spatial arrangements of the construction’s components. The fluid change of colors allows the work to shift further and to be potentially dismissed by the ticket holder walking under or past the lighting arrangement on his or way to a more official exhibit.
However it is the passing visitor who provides “A Spatial Portrait” with its subject and ability to respond. As an individual visitor passes below the construction, sensors recognize the person’s presence and lights outline and mark the individual’s passage below. If more than one person or groups move toward one another, the work breaks into an explosion of lights.
And if a visitor passes to the left of the piece toward the first exhibit hall and stops at a specific location, cameras will capture an image of that individual and feed both colors and shape into the grid of lights, causing “the spatial portrait,” where the subject’s presence is sketched in the lighting grid: showing a cloud of bright color followed by an eerie brief shadow of the subject.
The result is a art work that uses the current technologies to create an object of light that responds to the presence of an observer, participant, and subject. It is the beginning of a new level of artistic experimentation and potential expression.
For more about the artist (seen with the art work in the accompanying photo) , her site is http://www.lightprojectsltd.com/ .
