The light installation ‘What is for Sure’ explores the relationship between space and time. By reinterpreting and manipulating the seemingly natural and chronological rhythm of light, the artwork addresses the phenomenon of chromatic changes in the sky caused by atmospheric scattering.
Like the view through a window to the outside world, a series of visual light structures mimic the rhythm and duration of daylight phases through subtle variations in color and brightness. However, this natural cycle is altered between sunrise and sunset, showing a mixture of video sequences capturing natural scenes and artificially generated representations created by artificial intelligence.
The fundamental nature of the sun’s course and our perception of time once considered reliable, now appears uncertain, raising the question of what we can rely on in a world where AI is increasingly intertwined with our daily lives.
Natural light as a transmitter of time is unique and defines the relationship between time and space through movement, change, and rhythm. Artificial light has a special relationship with time and space, as this relationship needs to be re-established constantly and therefore offers the possibility for artistic investigation and manipulation.
The LED tubes used were specially produced for this installation and form an antithesis to current high-resolution image reproduction media, as they allow information to be abstracted. In addition, diffusion layers within the tubes and the physical arrangement of the resulting tubes help to further fragment the information to be observed.
The sound design of the video documentation of this work was realized by sonification of the input footage of the installation, using Max/MSP.
The footage displayed within the installation is fed through color and structural analysis and directly packaged into a resynthesis system. Varying block lengths in the FFT-resynthesis result in tracks which filter and enhance auditory structures of each other therefore at times highlighting changes in visual data of the captured and generated footage of the installation. The low fidelity, low complexity spectral translation is used to reframe the visual presentation through an unanticipated sonic counterpart.
What is for sure, 2024
Stainless steel, glass, acrylic paint, aluminum, PLA, LED, custom electronics
158 x 106 x 5 cm
Studio Verena Bachl | Project Page | Instagram Verena Bachl | Instagram Karsten Schuhl
/++
/++
