highlike

MARTIN HESSELMEIER & ANDREAS MUXEL

CAPACITIVE BODY
file festival

The installation “capacitive body” is a modular light system that reacts to the sound of its environment. Each custom-built module consists of an electro-luminescent light wire linked to a piezoelectric sensor and a microcontroller. Through its modular setup it can easily be adapted to various urban spaces. The sensors are used to measure vibrations of architectural solids in a range of low frequencies. These oscillations are triggered by surrounding ambient noise, for example traffic noise. The data sensor controls the light wires, which are tensed to a spatial net structure. According to the values of the measurement, light flashes are generated. With increasing vibrations the time between flashes becomes shorter and shorter. The stability of this nervous system gets to an end where it collapses and restarts again. A dynamic light space is thereby created, which creates a visual feedback of the aural activity around the installation.

Kimchi and Chips

Difference and Repetition
The title references Deleuzes thesis ‘Difference and Repetition’ – his attempt to understand reality without referring to identities. The artists aim to ‘unidentify’ the audience – to criticize the bubbles of reality which technology has helped us to build around ourselves. By allowing ourselves to remove our identity occasionally, we can better understand the thoughts of those we disagree with and therefore better work together to build a combined reality. Difference (in both senses) is generated by the motion control system which continuously changes the pose of the mirrors relative to the viewer. This movement disrupts space itself, creating a transformation similar to that of a Lorentz transformation when one travels close to the speed of light. This causes space itself to compress, twist and break, giving the viewer a tool for observing the non-absolute nature of time.

kimchi and chips

キムチアンドチップス
Light Barrier

Kimchi and Chips create phantoms of light in the air, crossing millions of calibrated beams with their work Light Barrier, 2014. The light installation creates floating graphic objects which animate through space as they do through time.

Raffaello D’Andrea and Max Dean

The Table
The Table is an autonomous robot with an automatic mechanized system able to react to unexpected movement or obstacles and to carry out one or more tasks by executing a program in a given environment. As is the case with most “prototypical” robotic works, or single editions, the basic physical components can be pre-manufactured then modified or custom built to meet specific needs. In the case of The Table, the control system and its algorithms were entirely conceived by Max Dean and Raffallo D’Andrea. All the components, including the wheels and motors, were also custom manufactured, giving the installation a unique character. The singular characteristic of this work lies in the robotic nature of the table and it’s capacity to operate in an environment specifically designed for it. For example, the shade of red painted on the floor is directly linked to the effective functioning of the camera and the control software. Also, the space lights used in the room produce a light that prevents the creation of shadows, which the software could mistakenly interpret as a physical presence.

DORETTE STURM

FILE SAO PAULO 2017
THE BREATHING CLOUD
“The Breathing Cloud” is a monumental floating organism. The work transforms a space by its motion, light, and rhythmic breathing. With this light art the phrase “let a room come to life” gets a new meaning. The clouds skin looks fragile and soft, and the movements are rhythmic, yet random, so the whole room feels like a living being. The technology is designed so that the strong LED modules and the mechanism support the pervasive breathing. It gets physically bigger and smaller and embraces with its bright light space.

Caitlin Franzmann

Drawn Together, Held Apart

Caitlin is an artist that is interested in intentional social connection in public spaces. She creates experiences that allow participants to quietly communicate and listen to one another. In the live component of her installation, Caitlin hosts an conversation entitled ‘talking and listening about talking and listening’. ‘Drawn Together, Held Apart’ (2017), a custom made table with inbuilt surface transducer speaker, motion sensor activated LED lighting, proximity speakers and audio. Visitors rest their ears on the glass and listen.

 

Lebbeus Woods

The Light Pavilion
The Light Pavilion by Lebbeus Woods in collaboration with Christoph a. Kumpusch, in the Raffles City complex in Chengdu, China, by Steven Holl Architects.
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The Light Pavilion is designed to be an experimental space, one that gives us the opportunity to experience a type of space we haven’t experienced before. Whether it will be a pleasant or unpleasant experience; exciting or dull; uplifting or frightening; inspiring or depressing; worthwhile or a waste of time, it is not determined by the fulfillment of our familiar expectations, never having encountered such a space before. We shall simply have to go into the space and pass through it. That is the most crucial aspect of its experimental nature, and we – its transient inhabitants – are experimentalists.Lebbeus Woods and Christoph a. Kumpusch

Peter Macapia

Dirty Geometry:Cloud
Dirty Geometry: Cloud is a six-panel folded screen generated using algorithmic computation with random variables. Between the drawing and the surface lies an infra-thin space perpetually reconstituted; one hue replaces another as the light shifts outside; becoming more intense, now

WWM

We Were Monkeys

Mihai Wilson and Marcella Moser

Tears For Fears “Break The Man”

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Through a 3D animation in white black and very sophisticated, they transport us into a cold and labyrinth world, built like immense escherian space.

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“Break the Man,” which features light piano and blasting guitar as the musicians reflect on women fighting patriarchy.

Jon & Vangelis

VANGELIS
R.I.P
Horizon
In amongst the rings of confusion
Silencing the thought powers one by one
It seems all so incredible
Our own ability to confuse – to sacrifice
To enlighten like a shakespearian play
We foolish and happily hold on to sanity
While all around the pushing feelings
The twisting and turning of our hearts
Displaying an almost indefinable strength
Of purpose – a reason a reason a reason
Where no reasons seems to exist
Yet, as in a vision, a voice transcending
All our imagination, jewel of life
Guiding light heralding a joyous new dawn
Clear and gifted time
Divine nature – super nature
The supreme gift of knowledge and space
In this cacophony of life
Peace will come

Nicolas Bernier

frequencies (light quanta)

The project is part of an ongoing process entitled «frequencies», exploring basic sound and light dichotomic systems. Here, frequencies (light quanta) stems from a fascination towards science, light, and granular synthesis allowing to create clouds/grains of sounds. The conceptual focus lies in the quantum — the smallest measurable value of energy —, on the smallness of matter. The whole project is based on the possible conceptual relationships between basic quantum physics principles applied to the audio-visual creative process: particles, probabilities, wave/particle duality and discontinuity. Metaphorically structured around these notions, the audio-visual composition stems from 100 sound and light micro-sequences that develop themselves, generating an ever expending but yet disruptive form in time and space. With the use of randomness, the vectorial graphics are always creating new ways to look at the visual, physically superimposing pattern images.

Julian Scordato

Constellations
File Festival
FILE HIPERSONICA

This work begins from the exploration of an imaginary celestial space which is translated into sound space. How does each celestial sphere – starting from its manifestation as a unit – interact with the cosmos where it belongs? How does it react to its law? How does it transform itself integrating with the system, until the loss of identity? In contrast to this process, the constellations act by highlighting the bodies in their uniqueness through the creation of symbolic links: beyond their meaning, they stand as a classification and articulation device of the individual within the system.
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Questo lavoro parte dall’esplorazione di uno spazio celeste immaginario che si traduce in spazio sonoro. In che modo ogni sfera celeste – a partire dalla sua manifestazione come unità – interagisce con il cosmo a cui appartiene? Come reagisce alla sua legge? Come si trasforma integrandosi con il sistema, fino alla perdita di identità? In contrasto con questo processo, le costellazioni agiscono mettendo in evidenza i corpi nella loro unicità attraverso la creazione di collegamenti simbolici: al di là del loro significato, si pongono come dispositivo di classificazione e articolazione dell’individuo all’interno del sistema.

Jeanne Gang

American Museum of Natural History
Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation
“We uncovered a way to vastly improve visitor circulation and museum functionality, while tapping into the desire for exploration and discovery that is so emblematic of science and also such a big part of being human. Upon entering the space, natural daylight from above and sight lines to various activities inside invite movement through the Central Exhibition Hall on a journey toward deeper understanding. The architectural design grew out of the museum’s mission.” Jeanne Gang

Wolfgang Buttress

The Hive  Kew Gardens

“The proposal involves the idea of ​​’temporary’ in an interesting way. It uses the temporary aspect of the installation to carefully engage with the purpose and short and long-term needs of the land,” said the judges. Originally designed for the Expo 2015 from Milan, The Hive was transferred to Kew Gardens, in central London, for two years, where it was part of an event space. Designed to give visitors a glimpse into the life of working bees, the pavilion was built with 169,300 individual aluminum components equipped with hundreds of LED lights. As the meadow surrounding the structure grows, several species of plants begin to flourish, bringing with them the sounds of real bees that enhance the multi-sensory experience of the pavilion.The aesthetic and symbolic installation represents its namesake, with the aim of showing visitors the importance of protecting the honeybee.

VEGA ZAISHI WANG

베가 왕
维加王
ВЕГА ВАН
ALPHA LYREA
Beijing-based fashion designer Vega Zaishi Wang’s new Alpha Lyrae collection is very special. Silk dresses of her design were printed with galaxies, constellations, and nebulas, then backed with lightweight and flexible electroluminescent paper, making the garments glow. The name of the collection is quite clever: not only does it reference the space theme of the design, but Alpha Lyrae is the name of the brightest star in the constellation of Vega, which is also the designer’s first name.

Lawrence Malstaf

FILE SAO PAULO 2017
OVERVIEW

Astronauts who were able to observe planet Earth from outer space for the first time, all experienced a strong emotional reaction later called the overview effect. A euphoric feeling of oneness with the planet and all living beings as a collective biotope where ‘my molecules are yours’ and vice versa and individuality seems an illusion.
The Overview-installation consists of a motorized video screen that can slowly pan, tilt and lift. The screen is 3m x 4m wide and has LED light on the backside. An abstracted globe is projected on the front.

TUNDRA

My Whale
There is an impressive space at the front of the ship, with panoramic windshield and hexagonal pattern on the vaulted ceiling, remained from the 80-s, the time, when “Brusov” was constructed in Austria. Standing there gives you the feeling of floating through the reflections of the Krymsky bridge lights on the river, inside a giant whale head. Looking through its eyes, listening to its songs that flow across the brain made of hexagonal cells by the wires hanging down here and there.
With some light and sound we brought this whale to life.
Each piece of the projection onto the cells was cloned from the previous one with a random changes. So each cell behaved differently, pulsating to the rythm of the whale songs. To interract with the whale the visitor could place the phone screen above the black box in the center of the room.

László Moholy-Nagy

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

heinz mack

The Sky over Nine Columns
Heinz Mack has developed a genuine language of light and colour since the 1950s and is a leading exponent of kinetic art. The concept of ‘Light Stele’, to which ‘The Sky Over Nine Columns’ refers, was first formulated by Mack in the late 1950s in his Sahara Project. His works in public spaces – whether in urban settings or nature – are always conceived as objects for light: “Light is decisive for my art. As far as light is concerned, I want to go to the limits of the possible.” (Heinz Mack)

Chris Salter

n-Polytope: Behaviors in Light and Sound after Iannis Xenakis
N_Polytope: Behaviors in Light and Sound After Iannis Xenakis is a spectacular light and sound performance-installation combining cutting edge lighting, lasers, sound, sensing and machine learning software inspired by composer Iannis Xenakiss radical 1960s- 1970s works named Polytopes (from the Greek ‘poly’, many and ‘topos’, space). As large scale, immersive architectural environments that made the indeterminate and chaotic patterns and behaviour of natural phenomena experiential through the temporal dynamics of light and the spatial dynamics of sound, the Polytopes still to this day are relatively unknown but were far ahead of their time. N_Polytope is based on the attempt to both re-imagine Xenakis’ work with probabilistic/stochastic systems with new techniques as well as to explore how these techniques can exemplify our own historical moment of extreme instability.

Donald Davis

Internal view of the O’Neill cylinder
“One of my earliest Space Colony paintings was based on the giant ‘Model 3’ cylindrical habitats envisioned by Gerard O’Neill. I imagined the clouds forming at an ‘altitude‘ around the rotation axis. At this time the scene is bathed in the ruddy light of all the sunrises and sunsets on Earth at that moment as the colony briefly enters the Earths shadow, out at the L5 Lagrangian point where stable locations are easily maintained. Oil on canvas panel disposition unknown. “

Jeppe Hein

Breath from Pineal to Hara

Coloured neon rings light up in a specified sequence behind a two-way mirror, layered with reflections of the visitors and the surrounding space. Starting with the inner ring, the individual rings light up one after the other. Once all rings are illuminated, they switch off again from the outer ring to the inside. The sequence and colours are reminiscent of the breathing technique from Pineal to Hara and the artwork invites the viewer to breath accordingly. Combined with the two-way mirror in front of it, it seems to awaken viewers to the present moment and make the usually unconscious process of breathing conscious for a while. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Sanja Marusic

Moonflight
The fashion short was inspired by the symbolic abstract forms and geometric shapes of the avant- gardist Triadic ballet. Sanja Marusic simplied bodily shapes by substituting them with cylinders and circles, she made her own costumes and then abstracted the human form even further by incorporating stylised dance movements by filming herself dancing. The result is a surrealist symbiosis of the human body moving through time and space.

daniel von sturmer

electric-light
Electric Light presents a scenography of forms borrowed from the world-behind-the-scenes of lens based image production. Backdrops, stands, flats, flags and bounces populate the gallery space, illuminated by a changing array of coloured lights. A moving light animates the space with changing forms, shapes and colours, adding another layer of dynamic activity. This new work brings light to the foreground and renders the gallery as an unfolding set.

onformative

Anima
»ANIMA« is a sculptural installation developed to explore the relationship between itself and its surroundings through the use of movement, texture, light and sound. The installation consists of a giant glowing sphere measuring two meters in diameter. This larger-than-life entity is suspended from the ceiling, as if in mid-air, in a darkened room. The luminescent sculpture acts as the sole light source for the space, drawing viewers in as it reacts to their presence.

United Visual Artists

ユナイテッド·ビジュアルアーティスト
美国视觉艺术家
our time

Our Time (2016) is the latest large-scale installation by United Visual Artists investigating our subjective experience of the passing of time. How long is a moment? At what rate does time actually pass? The work joins a series of kinetic sculptures that began with Momentum (2013); an installation designed as a ‘spatial instrument’ that was to reveal the relationship between expectation and perception when intersected with a physical space.
Our Time defines a physical environment where pendulums swing at a pace apparently unhindered by the laws of nature and where no single time measurement applies. The installation combines movement, light and sound as a multi-sensory, multi-dimensional canvas the visitor can enter. Pendulums swing, each to their own rhythm, as time flows through the grid. With light tracing the path and sound its echo, the passing of time becomes almost palpable.

ERNESTO KLAR

Эрнесто Клар
Convergenze parallele

Convergenze parallele is an audiovisual installation in which airborne dust particles passing through a beam of light are tracked, visualized, and sonified in realtime by a custom software system. The installation reacts to air movements in the exhibition space, allowing the viewer to see and hear the amplified movement of dust particles. “Convergenze parallele” explores the poetic potential of revealing and transforming the imperceptible. The custom software uses a video camera to capture the activity of dust articles passing through the beam of light. It then analyzes the video signal to track the location of individual dust particles, and reveals each particle’s trajectory in the image-processed projection. The physical particles draw traces of their otherwise invisible motion on the digital screen. At random intervals, the software artificially saturates the system by briefly activating the fan-a cloud of dust fills the beam of light and creates dense and stunning patterns of particle trajectories and sound.

File Festival

KURT HENTSCHLAGER

Zee
File Festival 

Immersive Audiovisual Environment Artificial Fog, Stroboscopes, Pulse Lights and Surround Sound, 2008

ZEE proposes a state of tabula rasa and unfolds without a narrative or reproducible imagery.The audience wanders freely in a space filled with extremely dense fog that fully obscures all of its boundaries. Stroboscopic- and pulse lights illuminate the fog, in a softened and evenly dispersed manner, creating kaleidoscopic three-dimensional structures in constant animation. An ambient and minimal sound-scape connects to the imagery, without directly synchronizing to it.The core visual impression of ZEE is of a psychedelic architecture of pure light, an abstract luminescent landscape enveloping the visitor. Time appears to stand still.

olafur eliasson

Seeing spheres
Each of olafur eliasson’s seeing spheres supports a flat, circular mirrored face, framed by a ring of LED lights, which is oriented inward to reflect the mirrored faces of the surrounding spheres. Together they produce a surprising environment of multilayered, reflected spaces in which the same people and settings appear again and again, visible from various unexpected angles. Tunnel-like sets of nested reflections open up in the mirrors, repeating countless times and disappearing into the distance.

Dan Flavin

Untitled (to Barnett Newman) two
Dan Flavin was an American artist and pioneer of Minimalism, best known for his seminal installations of light fixtures. His illuminated sculptures offer a rigorous formal and conceptual investigation of space and light, wherein the artist arranged commercial fluorescent bulbs into differing geometric compositions. “I like art as thought better than art as work,” he once said. “I’ve always maintained this. It’s important to me that I don’t get my hands dirty. It’s not because I’m instinctively lazy. It’s a declaration: art is thought.”

Mattia Paco Rizzi + Jessica Bergstein-Collay

Taumascopio
‘Taumascopio’ is an art installation designed and realized by parisian architect-artist mattia paco rizzi for the 2014 kanal playground festival in brussels, belgium. the structure is completely covered with mirrors and as a result, offers a complete visual camouflage along the molenbeek’s canal. as its exterior panels fold, the overall massing creates a kaleidoscopic effect that reacts to heat. during the temperature’s evolution throughout the day, the surfaces present an ever-changing reflective effect. ‘the ‘taumascopio’ invites us to reflect in poetic vein on public space, like a box of delights that gives us multiple visions and allows us to see the city differently,’ says rizzi. ‘the mosaic of reflections sends our thoughts in new directions and invite us to create new ideas.’

NONOTAK STUDIO

DAYDREAM V.02

DAYDREAM is an audiovisual installation that generates space distortions. Relationship between space and time, accelerations, contractions, shifts and metamorphosis have been the lexical field of the project. This installation aimed at establishing a physical connection between the virtual space and the real space, blurring the limits and submerging the audience into a short detachment from reality. Lights generate abstract spaces while sounds define the echoes of virtual spaces. Daydream is an invitation to contemplation. The frontality of the installation leads the visitors to a passive position.

Tobias Putrih

Re-projection: Hoosac

Influenced by the utopian projects — and notable failures — of innovative artists and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, Frederick Kiesler, and Charles Eames, Tobias Putrih likens his works to experiments, or design prototypes. His use of cheap materials, including egg crates, cardboard, and plywood signify both a sense of potential and impending collapse. Many of the artist’s works reference the architecture and spectacle of the cinema: a space suspended between fantasy and reality, image and environment. With Re-projection: Hoosac Putrih distills the cinema to its most basic element: fishing line stretched across the gallery mimics the conical trajectory of a beam of light. A spotlight hits the strands of monofilament which in turn become a screen, reflecting an image in illuminated dots. Inspired by the Hoosac Tunnel just east of North Adams — a storied, engineering marvel that draws ghost-hunters to the area — Putrih’s tunnel is, likewise, both real and a representation, an optical trick that invites both wonder and investigation.

hc gilje

in transit
Two swift beams of light travel through a room creating infinite shadows on a series of floating white frames. This is In Transit X, a darkened, room-based installation that alludes to an endless void.The dizzying effects of In Transit X place the viewer into a monochromatic man-made space. The fifty-foot-wide animated light installation by artist Hc Gilje was originally made for the Wood Street Galleries in Pittsburgh in 2012, and recently went on display last month at Kulturkirken Jakob in Oslo. Using block-like frames and light as the mediums, Gilje creates dynamic visual dimensions that lend themselves to a mesmerizing noirish experience.

Ateliers Jean Nouvel

努维尔
جان نوفيل
ז’אן נובל
ジャン·ヌーヴェル
Жан Нувель
장 누벨
Serpentine Pavilion

The design contrasted lightweight materials with dramatic metal cantilevered structures, rendered in a vivid red that, in a play of opposites, contrasts with the green of its park setting. In London, the colour reflects the iconic British images of traditional telephone boxes, postboxes and London buses. The building consists of bold geometric forms, large retractable awnings and a sloped freestanding wall that stands 12m above the lawn.
Striking glass, polycarbonate and fabric structures create a versatile system of interior and exterior spaces, while the flexible auditorium accommodates the changing summer weather and Park Nights, the Serpentine’s acclaimed programme of public talks and events, which attracts up to 250,000 visitors each summer.
Nouvel’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, the architect’s first completed building in the UK, operates as a publicly accessible structure within Kensington Gardens and as a café. The pavilion design highlights the idea of play with its incorporation of traditional French outdoor table-tennis tables.
This 2010 Pavilion is the tenth commission in the gallery’s annual series, the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind, which has become an international site for architectural experimentation and follows a long tradition of pavilions by some of the world’s greatest architects. The immediacy of the commission – a maximum of six months from invitation to completion – provides a unique model worldwide.

LA LA LA HUMAN STEPS

Amelia

Edouard Locke

“Directed and choreographed by Locke in 2002, Amelia, is a beautiful piece of dance on film that won awards and critical acclaim at numerous festivals when it came out. Amelia features a hypnotic, original, minimalist score written by David Lang for violin, cello, piano and voice, and lyrics from five of Lou Reed’s most famous works that he created in the 60s for the Velvet Underground. It is beautifully shot from multiple angles, some dizzying and swooping, in a space that was tailor-made for the film itself. The shadows and lighting in tandem with the shots and the movement add layers of beauty to the stark visuals.” Sarah Elgart