if the monarch butterfly is compelled to travel towards light, the bioluminescent plants Diane Willow encountered off the coast of Main while on a MIT residence
are reacting by emitting light. These organisms constitute a fluid light medium that could be stimulated. Being this stretch of coast an area isolated and lacking artificial light, these plants strive, shining with any agitation of water. During the day time, we only see water.
Interested in developing ways to extend compassion with one another through multi-sensorial explorations, Willow found that those bioluminescent plants were what she was looking for. Swimming in drawers containing sea water, in Cascade and Circling, these bioluminescent organisms lie seemingly inanimate in absolute darkness, but they can be stimulated from a distance thanks to a slightly curvy device that can be touched and caressed. the result is a series of ephemeral apparitions that resemble electrical ghosts and fading substances.
Cascade and Circling is one of two installations featuring bioluminescent and electroluminescent lights opening on saturday night at the Pixel Gallery. Sitting side by side, the two are connected and coexisting in the same environment
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when thinking about light as a form of energy, one is inevitably brought to meditate about light pollution, or electricity. not many people are knowledgeable about the possibility behind photovoltaics or PV.
Belgian Bart Vanderput has explored PVs for quite sometime and is now touring to transmit his knowledge about the increasing diversity of PV prototype and the way not only artists, but also inventors and scientists can make a good use of them.
see an article from pop science mag Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=solar-power-lightens-up-with-thin-film-cells
http://www.sciam.com/sciammag/?contents=2008-01
and some examples of artists and inventors who master and use PV successfully.
London Oasis
Sarah Hall
http://spie.org/x23468.xml?highlight=x2358
While the power of the sun is energy and produces “visible” light, this is never perceived as a physical or concrete presence. a poster exhibition organized under the title of “Ephemeral Towards Physical” showed how artists from a number of different disciplines used various technologies to capture, record and use the experiential and physical nature of light.
Thus, carbon flux data of trees and measurements of sunlight were turned into music by Lorraine Berry
In Lo-Fi, Nell Tenhaaf and Melanie Baljko light in the form of a few LEDs and sound indicates the presence of A-life agents.