Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Lichtballett: can space be shaped out of light, sound, and movement?

The following review was initially published at SHIFTboston blog by Zenovia Toloudi


“Light ballets as light performances.” Photo credits: Gunter Thorn / MIT List Visual Arts Center. Image source: Daily Serving


Lichtballett (light ballet)
is an inspirational and innovative light-based sculptural work that constructs space through a multisensory artistic experience. Created by Otto Piene, a pioneer at multimedia and technology-based art, whose work is often using light, smoke, fire, air, and other intangible media, Lichtballett is currently exhibited at MIT List Visual Arts Center.



Light machines. Photo credits: Gunter Thorn / MIT List Visual Arts Center. Image source: The Boston Globe



In the beginning of 2011, at The Divine Comedy exhibition, local art and architecture lovers had the opportunity to interact with Olafur Eliasson’s 55 machines that challenged our spatial perceptual habits. Initially created 50 years ago, Otto Piene’s (light) machines would seek for new, nontraditional ways of making art, as a response to what was believed to be the era of painting’s death. Re-constructed this year for MIT, astoundingly contemporary, Light Ballet suggests the possibility of an architecture, which is not made out of blocks, bricks or concrete pieces: it is constructed through the orchestration of quiet, calm sounds and soft light movements, that choreographs the ever-changing rhythms and patterns of space; it is experienced in darkness and silence through projections, reflections, illuminations, and glows that evolve and flow into energy, infinity, imagination, and memory.

As exhibition’s curator João Ribas says:


“Light ballets as light performances...Otto Piene: Lichtballett highlights the artist’s exploration of light as an artistic and communicative medium…causing what he described as ‘the steady flow of unfurling and dimming, reappearing, and vanishing light.’ These light machines evolved into kinetic sculptural environments of mechanized effects…”





Electric Rose (1965) Light Machine. Photo credits: Gunter Thorn / MIT List Visual Arts Center. Image source: Daily Serving



What are the instruments of this spatial orchestra?
The Electric Rose (1965), a polished aluminum globe covered with neon light bulbs that emit light in four sequenced phases; the two interior lamps of Light Ballet on Wheels (1965) continuously project light through a revolving disk; the sculpture Electric Anaconda (1965), composed of seven black globes of decreasing diameter stacked in a column; the site-specific Lichtballett (2011), a wall sculpture; and One Cubic Meter of Light Black (2010–11).
These pieces are synchronized through an original score composed by the artist for his first light performances in the 1960s. In a recent talk at MIT Otto Piene praises silence through the soft qualities of his score:


“One enjoyable phenomenon that was kind of new was silence. The war was incredibly cacophonic, incredibly dramatic and disastrously loud; and silence was something that was almost new to me. So the silence that comes from the light ballet was, to me, something really important; it was an artistic phenomenon that was almost physically present and enjoyable. So that’s also what I see in the night ballet and I did write some sound for the light ballet but is very basic and is certainly not cacophonic.”




Exhibition’s opening. Photo credits: MIT List Visual Arts Center



When talking about Otto Piene, curator and art historian Joe Ketner points out:


“The work transformed the nature of the form of art from an object of contemplation to a form of active engangement…By orchestrating light he transformed the traditional relationship between the artist and the spectator by eliminating the function of the artist touch as the conveyor of the evidence of the author.”



In Otto Piene’s own words: “the light is there and purveyed; and not I, but the light paints.” The transformative role of light in Otto Piene’s work “eliminates” the creator’s authorship and allows space to be constructed through the personal and collective experiences of the visitors.


Exhibition’s opening. Photo credits: MIT List Visual Arts Center



If you had already enjoyed Otto Piene’s inflatable star or “palm tree” Sky Art that was glowing during MIT FAST light anniversary celebration , make sure to experience the light ballet before next year comes!
(Otto Piene: Lichtballett is on view at the List Visual Arts Center through December 31, 2011)

About Otto Piene:
A leading figure in kinetic and technology-based art, Otto Piene was born in Bad Laasphe, Germany in 1928. After studying painting and art education at the Academy of Art in Munich and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and philosophy at the University of Cologne, Piene founded the influential Group Zero in Düsseldorf with Heinz Mack and Günther Uecker in 1957. Piene was the first fellow of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) in 1968, succeeding founder György Kepes in 1974 as its director until retiring in 1994. Piene had his first solo exhibition in 1959 at Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf and has had numerous exhibitions and retrospectives, including at the Kunstmuseum im Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf, in 1996, and at the Prague City Gallery, Prague, in 2002. His works are included in nearly two hundred museums and public collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Nationalgalerie Berlin; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the MIT List Visual Arts Center. Piene represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1967 and 1971, and exhibited at documenta in Kassel, Germany, in 1959, 1964, and 1977. Piene’s Centerbeam (1977), a pioneering multimedia work created with a team of artists for documenta 6, was later exhibited on the National Mall in Washington, DC. For the closing ceremony of the 1972 Munich Olympics, Piene created Olympic Rainbow, a “sky art” piece comprised of five helium-filled tubes that flew over the stadium. Piene received the Sculpture Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996. He lives and works in Groton, Massachusetts, and Düsseldorf, Germany.

References:
MIT List Visual Arts Center
Group Zero: A Talk by Joe Ketner
Otto Piene: Lichtballett, Hans Haacke 1967: Artist Talks
Notes and Queries: Joao Ribas

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

experiment_055: rocks in net


Figure 01. Rocks in the net (zoom in).

Figure 02. Rocks in the net (zoom out).

Figure 03. Top view of the rocks in the net when this is lighted with a flash light (small test).

Figure 04. Positioning the net under a lighting bulb.

Figure 05. Positioning the net under a lighting bulb.

Figure 06. Positioning the net under a lighting bulb (seen from far).
Experiment_055:
For this experiment we wanted to test whether the rocks in the nest can diffuse the light.
Items used in this experiment: white rocks, net, light bulb

experiment_054


Figure 01.

Figure 02.

Figure 03.

Figure 04.

Figure 05.
Experiment_054:

Items used in this experiment:

experiment_053: transluscent rock(s)


Figure 01. A transluscent rock.

Figure 02. A transluscent rock.

Figure 03. A transluscent rock.

Figure 04. A transluscent rock.

Figure 05. A transluscent rock.

Figure 06. A transluscent rock.
Experiment_053:
For this experiment we wanted to test whether rocks found at the beach can be used to diffuse light.
Items used in this experiment: white rocks found at the beach, flash light, led light.

experiment_052: many small rocks


Figure 01. The flash light lights between the mirror and the plexiglass with the rocks on it.

Figure 02. Close up of rocks creating diffusion.

Figure 03. Close up of rocks creating diffusion.

Figure 04. Light diffusion (top view).

Figure 05. Light diffusion (top view).
Experiment_052:
For this experiment we wanted to test whether the rocks on the transparent plexiglass and the mirror can provide a space for the light to be diffused.
Items used in this experiment: many small rocks, mirror, flash light.

experiment_051: thickness


Figure 01. Illuminating the thickness of the material.

Figure 02. Light "goes out" of the material when the last bends.

Figure 03. Reflection on the wall.

Figure 04. Same intensity is being transferred throughout the length of the plexiglass.

Figure 05. Same experimentation with the use of led light.
Experiment_051:
For this experiment we wanted to test whether we can transfer the light through the thickness of the transparent plastic material. The material used is similar to the experiment is a continuation of the experiment_050.
Items used in this experiment: transparent plastic piece of material (very thick), laser beam, led light, wall.

experiment_050: the split


Figure 01.Light being projected to the wall passing through the plexiglass.

Figure 02. The split of the light beam.

Figure 03. The split of the light beam.

Figure 04. The split of the light beam.

Figure 05. The split of the light beam.

Figure 06. The split of the light beam.


Figure 07. The split of the light beam.
Experiment_050:

For this experiment we wanted to test whether we can bend the light through the thick transparent plastic (slightly curved) material. The experiment is a continuation of the experiment_032 with the use of a thicker material.
Items used in this experiment: transparent plastic piece of material (very thick), laser beam, wall.

experiment_049: light breaking in


Figure 01. The mirror used to reflect the light in the glass room of another house.

Figure 02. The light reflected in the glass room

Figure 03. Zoom into the lighted glass room.
Experiment_049:
For this experiment we wanted to test whether the west light of the setting sun can be directed into the interior space of another house at its south side. This experiment is a continuation of the experiment_046, and experiment_048.
Items used in this experiment: sunlight, summer afternoon, mirror.


This experiment is a continuation of the

experiment_048: from W to S


Figure 01. The reflected sunlight can be seen as a spot right on the address label at the corner of the house.
For this experiment we wanted to test whether the west light of the setting sun can be directed to the south side of a house through its reflection on a mirror. The experiment took place on an august afternoon. This experiment is a continuation of the experiment_046.
Items used in this experiment: sunlight, summer afternoon, mirror.

experiment_047: one mirror - many rooms


Figure 01. Light in the children's room (shelves).

Figure 02. Light in the children's room (table).

Figure 03. Light in the children's room (wall).

Figure 04. Light in the children's room (ceiling).

Figure 05. Light in the couple's bedroom.

Figure 06. Light in the hallway (ceiling).

Figure 07. Light in the hallway (wall).
Experiment_047:
For this experiment we wanted to test whether by using one mirror we can direct the sunlight in different (dark) rooms of an apartment by only changing the position and angle.
Items used in this experiment: sunlight, sunlight, mirror.