PHOTODOTES DOCUMENTATION

PHOTODOTES DOCUMENTATION

The following text was written and edited by Zenovia Toloudi.

Since January 18th, one can visit and experience the project PHOTODOTES, an installation that brings naturally light in dark spaces, currently on show until the beginning of May at Brant Gallery at MassArt. PHOTODOTES is architectured and presented in three stages (collect-transfer-diffuse).

PHOTODOTES detail. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

A. COLLECT

The installation has two sources, the natural sun-light, collected in the roof of South Hall building in MassArt); and the artificial LED box, to be used only when there is no sun (night times and cloudy-stormy days). The research regarding the collection of the ever-changing natural sun-light is on-going and consists of multiple experiments to be tested on-site throughout the residency at MassArt.
COLLECT: Natural light collected at the roof. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe


COLLECT: Artificial light source to be used when there is no sun.

B. TRANSFER

The light (either natural or artificial) it is transferred via fiberoptics to the origami structure, found in the dark (or not enough lighted) space.

TRANSFER: Transferring artificial light through a transparent fiberoptic cable. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

TRANSFER: The (transparent) fiberoptic acts as a light vain, that gives light to the origami structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

TRANSFER: Transferring natural light through a black thick fiberoptic cable (traveling distance: 100 feet). Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

C. DIFFUSE

The origami structure is as an alternative to the black-box solution (often used to expose light). It is designed as a free-standing element of space, that can be reconfigured to different forms (wall, cave, surface, etc) based on needs, and desires. The flexible system configuration is consisted of folded triangles that provide a dark area (the alternative to black-box) for the light to be seen and diffused. The critical detail is conceived by George Toloudis (gtroza). The origami structure was constructed at Panagiotis Stamboulidis shop at Alexandroupolis, Greece. Mr. Takis, head of the shop, had generously offered the materials for its construction and shop resources (equipment and personnel) for 5 days and nights.


DIFFUSE: Detail from the light diffusion structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

DIFFUSE: Natural light arriving to the origami diffusion structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

DIFFUSE: The light captured in the origami structure niche. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

DIFFUSE: Looking to the niche where the natural light arrives after traveling 100 feet from the roof.

The research has started with a series of 56 light machines on collecting, transferring and diffusing light. The experiments were part of ZITOFOS workshop that took part in Alexandroupolis, Greece the last summer. The documentation of the experiments, along with other material related to spatial light, can be found in ZITOFOS website. PHOTODOTES is the first permanent spatial experiment to deal with this issue. One can watch the "Made in Greece" process in the following video:

PHOTODOTES: the making of from Zenovia Toloudi on Vimeo.

The research is being accomplished in collaboration with MIT Art, Cutlure, +Technology and the director of the program Ute Meta Bauer. Please see below the details of project credits:

Project credits:

Design: Zenovia Toloudi
Research: Zenovia Toloudi, Ute Meta Bauer (MIT Art, Culture, and Technology), George Toloudis
Construction: Zenovia Toloudi, George Toloudis, Panagiotis Stamboulidis @ Stamboulidis Panagiotis Workshop in Alexandroupolis, Greece
Gallery Installation: Zenovia Toloudi, Dominic Tschoepe, Dimitris Papanikolaou
Photography: Dominic Tschoepe, Zenovia Toloudi, Dimitris Papanikolaou
Movie: Zenovia Toloudi
Special thanks to: Maria Toloudi, Yannis Stratakis, Theodoros Koukos, Marrikka Trotter, Jonathan Santos, Evelyn Rytz

PHOTODOTES DOCUMENTATION

PHOTODOTES DOCUMENTATION

The following text was written and edited by Zenovia Toloudi.

Since January 18th, one can visit and experience the project PHOTODOTES, an installation that brings naturally light in dark spaces, currently on show until the beginning of May at Brant Gallery at MassArt. PHOTODOTES is architectured and presented in three stages (collect-transfer-diffuse).

PHOTODOTES detail. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

A. COLLECT

The installation has two sources, the natural sun-light, collected in the roof of South Hall building in MassArt); and the artificial LED box, to be used only when there is no sun (night times and cloudy-stormy days). The research regarding the collection of the ever-changing natural sun-light is on-going and consists of multiple experiments to be tested on-site throughout the residency at MassArt.
COLLECT: Natural light collected at the roof. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe


COLLECT: Artificial light source to be used when there is no sun.

B. TRANSFER

The light (either natural or artificial) it is transferred via fiberoptics to the origami structure, found in the dark (or not enough lighted) space.

TRANSFER: Transferring artificial light through a transparent fiberoptic cable. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

TRANSFER: The (transparent) fiberoptic acts as a light vain, that gives light to the origami structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

TRANSFER: Transferring natural light through a black thick fiberoptic cable (traveling distance: 100 feet). Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

C. DIFFUSE

The origami structure is as an alternative to the black-box solution (often used to expose light). It is designed as a free-standing element of space, that can be reconfigured to different forms (wall, cave, surface, etc) based on needs, and desires. The flexible system configuration is consisted of folded triangles that provide a dark area (the alternative to black-box) for the light to be seen and diffused. The critical detail is conceived by George Toloudis (gtroza). The origami structure was constructed at Panagiotis Stamboulidis shop at Alexandroupolis, Greece. Mr. Takis, head of the shop, had generously offered the materials for its construction and shop resources (equipment and personnel) for 5 days and nights.


DIFFUSE: Detail from the light diffusion structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

DIFFUSE: Natural light arriving to the origami diffusion structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

DIFFUSE: The light captured in the origami structure niche. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

DIFFUSE: Looking to the niche where the natural light arrives after traveling 100 feet from the roof.

The research has started with a series of 56 light machines on collecting, transferring and diffusing light. The experiments were part of ZITOFOS workshop that took part in Alexandroupolis, Greece the last summer. The documentation of the experiments, along with other material related to spatial light, can be found in ZITOFOS website. PHOTODOTES is the first permanent spatial experiment to deal with this issue. One can watch the "Made in Greece" process in the following video:

PHOTODOTES: the making of from Zenovia Toloudi on Vimeo.

The research is being accomplished in collaboration with MIT Art, Cutlure, +Technology and the director of the program Ute Meta Bauer. Please see below the details of project credits:

Project credits:

Design: Zenovia Toloudi
Research: Zenovia Toloudi, Ute Meta Bauer (MIT Art, Culture, and Technology), George Toloudis
Construction: Zenovia Toloudi, George Toloudis, Panagiotis Stamboulidis @ Stamboulidis Panagiotis Workshop in Alexandroupolis, Greece
Gallery Installation: Zenovia Toloudi, Dominic Tschoepe, Dimitris Papanikolaou
Photography: Dominic Tschoepe, Zenovia Toloudi, Dimitris Papanikolaou
Movie: Zenovia Toloudi
Special thanks to: Maria Toloudi, Yannis Stratakis, Theodoros Koukos, Marrikka Trotter, Jonathan Santos, Evelyn Rytz

PHOTODOTES

Figure 01. Natural light collected at the roof. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

Figure 02. Artificial light source to be used when there is no sun.

Figure 03. Transferring light through fiberoptics. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

Figure 04. Transferring light through fiberoptics to be diffused in space. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

Figure 05. Transferring light through fiberoptics to be diffused in space. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

Figure 06. Detail from the light diffusion structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

Figure 07. Detail from the light diffusion structure. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

Figure 07. Light arrival. Photo credits: Dominic Tschoepe

Figure 08. Natural light arriving in darkness after traveling 100 feet from the roof.

PHOTODOTES: the making of

PHOTODOTES: the making of from Zenovia Toloudi on Vimeo.

PHOTODOTES: collect-transfer-diffuse

an environmental art experiment




Design: Zenovia Toloudi
Research: Zenovia Toloudi, Ute Meta Bauer (MIT Art, Culture, and Technology), George Toloudis
Construction: Zenovia Toloudi, George Toloudis, Panagiotis Stamboulidis @ Stamboulidis Panagiotis Workshop in Alexandroupolis, Greece
Gallery Installation: Zenovia Toloudi, Dominic Tschoepe, Dimitris Papanikolaou
Special thanks to: Maria Toloudi, Yannis Stratakis, Theodoros Koukos, Marrikka Trotter, Jonathan Santos, Evelyn Rytz

PHOTODOTES

PHOTODOTES is a spatial installation that explores the manipulation of light in space, architectured to perform in 3 stages: collecting, transferring, and diffusing. PHOTODOTES consist of spatial elements of mixed materials (plastics, fiberoptics, and metals) that display light emission while being light-wired to two sources: daylight from outdoors and artificial light from indoor.

The “machinic” configuration is demonstrated in 3 parts:
o Collect: A light-surveillor observes the light patterns and gathers the sunlight to be transferred in the dark space. For this experimentation and due to limited amount of available sunlight, there are “2 suns”: the natural, and an artificial one.
o Transfer: Endglow fiberoptics cables were selected to transfer the light from the 2 suns to the spatial elements in order to spatialize the need for light to its literal extend.
o Diffuse: The solid objects or surfaces for light diffusion integrate the once disappeared (sun)light back to the dark space, by capturing it in their mass.

The different light patterns expected to occur throughout the 4 months of the exhibition are recorded and projected. The experimentation is a critique in phenomena related to lack of light, like the lack of vitamin D, depression, women’s cycle patterns irregularities, work separation from exterior conditions. It aims to explore light’s integral role in space by intervening through its two states: natural and artificial. Through this inseparable duality, PHOTODOTES proposes a holistic approach to light design, unlike the typical approach through windows/ screens/ transparencies by architects and the usual neon/ bulb approach by artists.

While PHOTODOTES do not necessarily solve the problems addressed, they aim to make people aware about affects of light on bodies and space. Having as a departure point, the art, the installation aims to reveal or emphasize the essential capacity of light in the built environment and well-being of people. In the GardenLab exhibition, PHOTODOTES is displayed for experimentation while aiming to augment our individual and collective perceptual mechanism.



*photodotes is the plural form of the greek: φωτοδότης = giver of light, luminary

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