My all time favourite favourite artist, James Turrell, is having a huge exhibition in Germany – his largest ever. Wolfsberg is not too far from Berlin – so I’m definitely going to make a plan to get over there. Roadtrip!
There’s not that much quality information about him on the web, so am happy to see this great video about his work:
Beautiful station ID for Finnish TV by Jopsu Ramu and Tokyo artist and designer and Shun Kawakami.
Check out Shun Kawakami’s other great stuff on his personal site: www.shunkawakami.jp.
Kawakami’s work if very much based in electronic music. And reminds me to an extend of another artist I really admire and have been meaning to post for a while – Carsten Nicolai who is exploring similar themes to myself in his artwork – light, sound and minalism.
Nicolai is well known in Germany for his sound and light specific installations, and his giant dream machine – called Rota, which has recently been turned into an iPhone App. Nicolai is also part of the pioneering record labelRaster Noton. I was recently lucky enough to attend their label showcase night at the WMF in Berlin to witness the future sound of music – a hybrid of dancefloor friendly electro and electronica that made the room and your body vibrate.
Here is Aoyama Spaces, spaces illuminated through a play of sound and light:
I fell in love with Simon Heijdens’ light work many years ago, so was happy to recently rediscover it.
Lightweeds are a living digital organism growing in an indoor space. Uniquely generated plant families grow up, move and behave closely depending on actual sunshine, rainfall and wind as measured live outside. On passing human traffic they bend, loose their seeds and pollenate to other walls throughout the space, to make up a constantly evolving wallpaper that reveals the character of the space and it’s use.
One of his first works I saw that brought me joy was Tree, shown above. Simple and beautiful.
‘I’m absolutely not interested in instant reaction and press button interaction. I don’t want to animate, I want to make a project that is animated through its surroundings’ Heijdens says.
The ghost in the field is an interesting look at RFID auras. Feels like an idea needs to be played with.
Via infosthetics
Unique lights recycled from spray cans from the Slovenian Zek crew.
Traveling Light is a 13m high column light sculpture sited at Junction 21 on the M5 motorway in the UK.
Consisting of 2000 digitally controlled LEDs which during the week Travelling Light gently scrolls through the primary colours with an electric sparkle, with rainbows on Saturdays and all white on Sundays. On Valentines Day it throws up a river of pink hearts and simulated light fireworks for New Year. Other dates include electric snow for Christmas, cosmic colour patterns for summer and winter solstices, flames on bonfire night and space-invaders on Halloween.
Quite a few other nice pieces of light art at http://www.peterfreeman.co.uk
Snoezelen are kind of chill rooms for the mentally and emotionally challenged.
Snoezelen, a contraction of “snuffelen” (to explore) and “doezelen” (to relax), is an idea developed in the late 1970′s by two Dutch therapists, Jan Hulsegge and Ad Verheul. They had learned of the positive responses a colleague was able to elicit from people with intellectual disabilities while exposed to a sensory environments and decided to further explore the idea. Their first sensory tent was filled with simple effects such as a fan blowing shards of paper, ink mixed with water and projected onto a screen, musical instruments, tactile objects, scent bottles, soaps, and flavorful foods. The results were impressive, specifically in clients who showed a marked reduction in self-abusive behaviors.
Snoezelen is now used widely in education and care settings for children with disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. Encouraging results have also been shown from people suffering from mental illness, chronic pain, acquired brain injury, and stress. Over the past fifteen years, Snoezelen has expanded into 30 countries with thousands of installations, a worldwide foundation, national and international conferences, and research projects.
831 fluorescent tubes powered only by the electromagnetic field surrounding overhead power lines. 145 x 39 x 1.5 metres. richardbox.com
