Catching Light

One of the biggest problems in my work is the 'screen' element, what the light (be it image of efffect) is being cast onto.

The two things I want to show with the screen are the 3d qualities of light and it's immaterial nature. As soon as it is captured on a flat screen these two qualities are lost.

The latest idea is a type of flick book screen using the principle of an animation, where the eye reads a rapid succesion of images as a flowing sequence. In this way the light should appear to hover in 3d.

www.lightmodulator.org

My website should be up in the next week or so... www.lightmodulator.org watch this space... Or that one.

Albers & Moholy Nagy Exhibition

This Exhibition is currently running at the Tate Modern, London. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/albersmoholy/ I went on Saturday 11th March along with most of London.

Moholy Nagy's Light Space Modulator could be classed as an early disco light if you were feeling particularly cynical but the effect is more than that. Moholy's intention was to create kinetic abstract images perhaps as an extension to his work with photograms and to this end he succeeds.

I found the machine mesmerising in itself and when combined with the moving light patterns cast onto the walls as well as the shadows created and the flashes caused by the mirror catching the light, the who atmosphere is pretty inspiring.

Other pieces of note where Leda and the Swan (below) which cast a slow moving image of its reflection as well as its shadow onto the wall behind and Double Loop, another folded acrylic number this time on a stand, casting caustics and reflections from its curves and edges.


Leda and The Swan, 1946

















Double Loop, 1946













Moholy's Photos were interesting, many of them taken from elevated positions revealing shadow casts and playing with depth of field and perception.

Artists and Architects who have worked with light

The context.

James Turrell: ‘I make spaces that apprehend light for our perception, and in some way gather it, or seem to hold it. So in that way it’s a little bit like Plato’s cave. We sit in the cave with our backs to reality, looking at the reflection of reality on the cave wall. As an analogy to how we perceive, and the imperfections of perception, I think this is very interesting.’
(http://www.conversations.org/99-1-turrell.htm, Greeting the Light. An Interview with James Turrell by Richard Whittaker, Accessed 13_03_06)

left: Turrell Skyspace, Kielder Water. Photo by author. Right, Light Space Modulator, Moholy-Nagy



















Moholy Nagy: Light Space Modulator, 1930.

Marcel Duchamp: Ombres Portées (Cast Shadows), 1918

Folding Vault

Study 1. An animation created from a folding pattern. Modulating light by shading and creating shadows. Animation to be posted shortly (04_03_06)