Lighting in Temporary Installations

By Emilie Sommerhoff

It has been more than four decades since Dan Flavin began his experiment with the readymade fluorescent lamp, an exploration that occupied him until his death in 1996. Arguably the initiation of artificial light as an artistic element, Flavin’s work drew on the fluorescent tube almost exclusively, finding its unique identity in the object’s uniformity, anonymity, and ubiquity. Said Flavin about light, “It is . . . as plain and open and direct an art as you will ever find.”

Not surprisingly, technology, in its gadgety complexity, has challenged artistic inquiry of the medium. In particular, the attributes associated with the LED—nearly infinite color and high-tech controllability—have inspired much of what passes for light art today. Contemporary gestures, as opposed to Flavin’s color-filled but humble glowing lines, are often kinetic entertainment more akin to video and computer games. The tools at hand seem to condone this.

It is therefore refreshing to present on the following pages three temporary and seasonal installations that deliver their messages using the unadorned ingredient of white light. Despite various levels of technical agility—from Flavinesque T5s to individually programmable LED arrays and off-the-shelf stadium spots aimed at meteorological balloons—each project is consistent in its attempt to let the medium exist as the plain, open, and direct expression Flavin himself believed it to be.

See movie

Denari_smallSOLID STATE: "FLOUROSCOPE 2006" AT SCI-ARC

SmallCLOCK WORK: "THE WORLD'S LARGEST TIMEPIECE" IN ZURICH

Small_1NIGHT LIGHT: "LIGHT DOME IN TALLIN, ESTONIA