Light as a Gift

Fall 2019
water, light, mirror, plastic, paper, video footage, mechanical parts
3' x 5' approximate, 10 min
Presented at School for Poetic Computation Fall 2019 Showcase
Covered on Creative Applications
Filed under PROJECTION, INSTALLATION, OBJECT, INTERACTIVE

Light as a Gift consists of three pieces, each part of an ongoing exploration using light as a medium. In one, petri dish samples of reflective plastics create organic-looking forms when light hits them. In another, a folded vessel captures light when it’s closed. The central piece is an acrylic box of water with a mirror underneath, reflecting the video projected onto its surface onto the nearby wall. A mechanism slowly dips into the water, creating ripples that distort the reflected image. The videos are of bodies of water I’ve visited at different times and places. In each case, light from the sun bounced off of the surface of the waves and into my phone’s lens, where it was encoded in video. In the gallery setting, a projector now sends that compressed light back onto a fabricated copy of its original source, the surface of the water. Just as the light from the environment was copied and reproduced on the gallery wall, the mood I felt when capturing the footage– one of quiet and contemplation– appears in the recreation, as well. If light is our main source of information about the visual world around us, how does our perception of the world change when light is manipulated?

︎︎︎ Full view of installation
︎︎︎ Detail of the surface of water
︎︎︎ View of mechanism and petri dishes containing mylar ‘specimens’
︎︎︎Sketchbook notes