Light Space Modulator

“This piece of lighting equipment is a device used for demonstrating both plays of light and manifestations of movement. The model consists of a cube-like body or box, 120 x 120 cm in size, with a circular opening (stage opening) at its front side. On the back of the panel, mounted around the opening are a number of yellow, green, blue, rot, and white-toned electric bulbs (approximately 70 illuminating bulbs of 15 watts each, and 5 headlamps of 100 watts). Located inside the body, parallel to its front side, is a second panel; this panel too, bears a circular opening about which are mounted electric lightbulbs of different colors. In accordance with a predetermined plan, individual bulbs glow at different points. They illuminate a continually moving mechanism built of partly translucent, partly transparent, and partly fretted materials, in order to cause the best possible play of shadow formations on the back wall of the closed box”. László Moholy-Nagy

Noumenon

A truly universal artist, the American Alwin Nikolais (1910-1993) devoted his life to a radical form of staged art he called “dance theater.” Inspired (perhaps unconsciously) by the experiments of Bauhaus members such as Oskar Schlemmer and László Moholy-Nagy in the 1920s, Nikolais devised a style of abstract dance that encompassed costumes, stage sets, choreography, lighting, and music, all under his control. Also in 1963, Nikolais met analog synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, who was at the time just starting his business in New York. He was fascinated by the sounds of Moog’s machines, and with the money provided by a a Guggenheim Fellowship, Nikolais bought the first ever commercially produced Moog synthesizer. It was the primary sound-source for all of Nikolais’ scores from 1963 to 1975. The instrument is now housed at the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

ニコラ·シェフェール

Cet intérêt pour le dynamisme artistique a été initié par les cubo-futuristes puis intensifié et solidifié par les artistes constructivistes, tels que Naum Gabo, Anton Pevsner, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy et Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, soucieux d’ouvrir les trois statiques. -Forme sculpturale dimensionnelle à une quatrième dimension du temps et du mouvement. Et c’était aussi l’intention de Schöffer. En 1948, il a commencé à explorer la spatio-dynamique, plus tard en 1957 la luminodynamique (en intégrant la lumière, la musique, le film), et depuis 1959 l’élément du temps aboutissant aux travaux cinétiques (chronodynamique). Schöffer cependant, venant bien après, a bénéficié des théories cybernétiques (théories des systèmes de rétroaction principalement basées sur les idées de Norbert Wiener) en ce qu’elles lui suggéraient des processus artistiques en termes d’organisation du système qui le manifestait (par exemple, la causalité circulaire de boucles de rétroaction). Pour Schöffer, cela a permis à la cybernétique d’élucider des relations artistiques complexes à partir de l’œuvre elle-même.