highlike

Yunchul Kim

La Poussière de soleils (Dust of Suns)
In the semicircular conservatory is a tall standing sculpture. It’s called La Poussière de Soleils, the Dust of Suns. On its back are tubes full of murky amber fluid; sunlight that has yet to be illuminated, still yet to set fire. Its façade comprises three hexagonal panels filled with a magical alchemical solution of la poussière de soleils, of the artist’s own invention. Each appears filled with thick golden sunshine. The bubbles blown through them leave trails of light even brighter and more golden; like trails of light torn through the heavens, like pools of shooting stars.

tabor robak

balenciaga collaboration
A 25 minute video loop with previously unreleased tracks by DJ Hell, made in collaboration with Balenciaga.

Here is a dramatic tension in his work between the real and the imagined in his use of often-appropriated digital objects to create virtual landscapes, which frequently contain elements – animals, machines, fragments of videogames – that are recognisable from our day to day life. This creates a symbiotic relationship between the digital and the real. In a very real way digital space has now become an intangible reality. The worlds built by Robak have a distinctly cinematic sensibility that hyperbolises the shine and dramatic effects of 3D rendered animation. The aesthetic of his work is supremely important, drawing the viewer into a truly alluring, indulgent and strangely gratifying environment. There is a further challenge to the void between high-art and the worlds of 3D animation and gaming, in the intersection between depiction and simulation. This can be partially attributed to the vernacular of advertising Robak is so proficient at utilising.

Kenny Wong

Squint
file festival
I was inspired by how the sunlight bounces around in our artificial forest.
“Squint” is a kinetic light installation consisting of 49 mirrors that reflect lights in a bright space. The mirrors track and reflect lights on audiences’ face with composed patterns of movements. It extends the generated perception by focusing on how lights pass across our visual senses physically, and combines with our perception of images through flickering. “Squint”, which extracts various daily experiences to an abstraction brings the audience to expand their interpretation of lights and perceived imagination into a non-linear experience.
“Squint” simulates light source and intentionally shines lights on audience’s faces. Bright light is projected in the gallery, a clean bright space.
Everyday people are dynamically moving around in the city. Sunlight reflects and flickers even when it is indirect and hidden behind the artifacts. While we are traveling, we are experiencing motion. We are also experiencing the shift of light intensity, visual patterns and textures. The varieties of light forms inspire the artist to explore the potential of light textures, select and sort out the combined complexity in urban space. The artist turns them into a minimal form of light experience, while maximizing its diversity of perception.

Anish Kapoor

Destierro
Destierro – which translates from Spanish into ‘exile’[…] features three installations that see Kapoor veering back towards his signature style of work with pigmented powder. However, unlike his previous work, the three pieces on display in Argentina shine a spotlight on the global migration crisis marking a change in direction for Kapoor who has, up until recently, shied away from making political work.

ANDREAS HAIDER AKA MUK

Skia

file festival
As natural as the daily sunshine, one’s shadow, formerly a constant companion, now often escapes from attention. A silhouette of our physical form, one’s shadow is no more than a flat, disembodied reduction of the contours of one’s self.The installation skia examines the interplay of our shadows and our conscious awareness of our physical displacement of space. In this closed-circuit installation, visitor´s images are manipulated and projected as artificial shadows.What does it mean if one’s shadow suddenly frees itself and develops an alien autonomy? And what has such an estrangement in common with the multiple identities of the post modern ego?

Whyixd

Through the Membrane
We define the space around us by observing and perceiving light and shadow. That is to say, our perception shapes our basic understanding of this sensory world, and hence the “reality” we believe in. If our experiential knowledge and awareness of space are challenged, would our definition of a “real phenomenon” also be changed? Through the Membrane utilizes optical polarizers to change how light passes through space. The installation does not rely on any electromechanical devices. Simply with creative use of material and structure, it presents a super-sensory experience in space where reality and illusion are inextricably juxtaposed.

fabric | ch

Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine
Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine is an architectural, climatic and temporal installation. Thanks to a “screen” composed of several hundred infrared light bulbs, Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine retransmits the journey and intensity of the sun as perceived on the 23rd parallel south, according to information transmitted live by weather stations all around the Tropic of Capricorn. Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine thereby creates a displaced architectural space, which confronts the visitor with an abstract form of day and endless summer. It represents the increasingly artificial nature of our environment and suggests a form of “static mobility” or “displaced tropicality”.

HITO STEYERL

Factory of the sun
In this immersive work, which debuted at the 2015 German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Steyerl probes the pleasures and perils of image circulation in a moment defined by the unprecedented global flow of data. Ricocheting between genres—news reportage, documentary film, video games, and internet dance videos—Factory of the Sun uses the motifs of light and acceleration to explore what possibilities are still available for collective resistance when surveillance has become a mundane part of an increasingly virtual world. Factory of the Sun tells the surreal story of workers whose forced moves in a motion capture studio are turned into artificial sunshine.

György Ligeti

Lux Aeterna
The text (in Latin) is from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass: Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis, which means “May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord, with thy saints in eternity, for thou art merciful. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may everlasting light shine upon them.”

John Adams

Doctor Atomic
Batter My Heart
Gerald Finley (J. Robert Oppenheimer)
Batter my heart, three person’d God; For you
As yet but knock, breathe, knock, breathe, knock, breathe
Shine, and seek to mend;
Batter my heart, three person’d God;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, break, blow, break, blow
burn and make me new.

astrid krogh

АСТРИД КРОГ
Ikat I
Fascinated by the interplay of textiles and light, Denmark-based artist Astrid Krogh explores the dialogue between natural and artificial illumination when paired with fibers. While studying at the Danish Design School, Krogh explored her interest in textiles, which shines through in the craftsmanship, patterns, and ornamentation of her work. Inspired by cycles of life in nature, many of Krogh’s neon.

HILARY FAYE

Хилари Фэй
Faye has a magical eye for composition and colour, which especially shines through in her photography. Her collages meld objects, people, animals and landscapes together with haphazard cropping and appropriation, and the outcomes are compelling and enigmatic. She dabbles in layering and geometry; her chosen textures and tones are evocative of another era, with use of nostalgic film grains, which is at the forefront of her mixed media mantra. She has a knack of combining a myriad of elements and arranging them into a rich formation of imagery.

Rebecca Warren

She works with an eye to extremes – monstrous excess, alarming paucity – creating a variety of objects that exist somewhere on the continuum between pure fleshiness and pure cartoonishness. Warren’s heightened appreciation of the framing, placement and context of her works, combined with an exploration of materials’ hidden meanings can also be found in her wall-mounted vitrines.

JANNE PARVIAINEN

Private Sunshine
Light Painter Janne Parviainen, also known as JANNEPAINT, is a full time artist who has been snapping photographs for over fifteen years. Like many light painters his discovery of the medium was an accident. In early 2007, Janne was out at night capturing long exposure photographs and accidentally bumped his camera, when he looked at his photograph the street lights had left streaks that appeared to be writing in the image; from that point on Janne was a Light Painter.

karolina halatek

TERMINAL
Terminal is a light space, that shines alone at night, separate from the outside world and yet open at both ends, a passage and a space of other kind at the same time, that dissolves in light. In art, light means enactment and dramatization, in this way the light space is a stage on which one gets isolated from the outside world as a spectator, but stands in the spotlight at the same time seen by everyone. At nights the Terminal is a light source: a star, that shines on the square, a shining riddle, that strangely isn’t media nor street light, pointless, but therefore very poetic[…]

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN

フセイン·チャラヤン
Чалаян
후세인 샬 라얀
Animatronic Fashion mashup
Furthering his technological trend, Chalayan unveiled the collection entitlledReadings, on screen, eshewing the conventional runway. The dresses themselves are highly structured, creating bold silhouettes from which the laser beams radiate. They are embellished with Swarovski crystals that either deflect the lasers, or take in their light, depending on the angle of the laser. The effect is hauntingly beautiful; where lasers shine directly into Swarovski crystals, they resemble glowing embers, yet where they are deflected the laser beams project into the surrounding space, evoking phantasmagorical new-age sun gods.