Lightworks
Lightworks and artists commissioned for the SuperLux exhibition at Sydney Customs House are:
TWILIGHT GARDEN
Twilight Garden by Mary-Anne Kyriakou, for the SuperLux: Smart Light Cities exhibition, Sydney Customs House, 2015
Mary-Anne Kyriakou highlights memories of sunset shimmer effects in Persian city water gardens cultivated with lush and intricate foliage. This work, installed by Mike Day and accompanied by Kyriakou’s Labyrinth musical composition, features 12 glowing pillars reflected in a black aluminium ‘pond’ and internally lit with colour-changing RGB LED lamps. The CMY-printed pillar patterns also allude to botanical photographs published by German artist Karl Blossfeldt in 1929.
Mary-Anne Kyriakou.
Professor Kyriakou is Chair of Lighting Design at Germany’s University of Applied Sciences Ostwestfalen-Lippe, and a partner of the Studio Kybra light art practice. Born in Australia and educated at the University of Sydney, she was the lighting director with international consulting engineers Meinhardt and the founder-creative director of the Smart Light festivals in Sydney (Vivid 2009) and Singapore (iLight Marina Bay 2010, 2012). Mary-Anne currently researches on biological and urban aspects of light and composes music.
Credits Design team (Detmold) Maximilian Thomforde, Katharina Klotz, Ingo Bracke. Interpretation and Production (Sydney) Mike Day. Equipment supplier Creative Lighting and Audio (André Kecskes).
—http://www.hs-owl.de/fb1/en/studium/lehrgebiete-h-p/lichtgestaltung.html
—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SZTotrMWi0
FOUR SHORE
Four Shore, by Damian Gascoigne for the SuperLux: Smart Light Cities exhibition, Sydney Customs House 2015
Damian Gascoigne has projection-mapped four video sequences to the elegant spiral staircase in the south-west corner of Customs House. Rising from the Ground Floor to Level 2, the coiled white structure was designed by PTW Architects for its 2004 renovations of the building. The Four Shore lightwork overlays visual allusions to rising and receding flows of light and water at ocean edges; hypnotically echoing ephemeral trails of foam repeatedly left by receding waves.
Damian Gascoigne.
Associate Professor Gascoigne directs the new Bachelor of Design Animation course at the University of Technology, Sydney. His professional career includes directing and illustrating award-winning animations for short films, commercials and gallery installations. Recently he was a senior lecturer and completed a masters degree in animation at Kingston University, London; where he focused on developing hybrid 3D languages.
Credits Music and Sound Design Peter Hollo.
—uts.edu.au/staff/damian.gascoigne—vimeo.com/user941535
GALAXIA 3
Galaxia 3, by Alan Rose for the SuperLux: Smart Light Cities exhibition at Sydney Customs House, 2015
Alan Rose creates large outdoor lumino-kinetic works, often including sonic features. He aims to play with the perceptions of viewers; exploiting (like 1960s Op Art) the unstable relationship between the retina, which sees patterns, and the brain, which interprets them. Galaxia 3 displays repeating geometric shapes, arranged according to a mathematical system and activated by LED lights. The resulting effects of slowly changing patterns and geometric instability are designed to suspend the viewer between sensations of order and disorder, fostering engagement with the work over a protracted timespan.
Alan Rose.
With degrees in engineering science, economics and fine arts, Mr Rose is a sophisticated investigator of boundaries between order and chaos. He uses pattern repetition and sequencing principles from mathematics and geometry to develop optically complex works which tease the perceptions of viewers; ideally sustaining their fascination and bewilderment. His works have been shown in solo and group shows, several editions of Sculpture by the Sea and Vivid, and are held in private collections.
Credits Equipment supplier Xenian/Philips Color Kinetics.
—alanrosesculptor:blogspot.com.au
As well as the three art installations by guest artists, the SuperLux exhibition includes two new lighting schemes for the Customs House facade and its subterranean scale model of Sydney’s central district, both designed by exhibition co-curator Mike Day.
RADIANT CITY
Radiant City, by Mike Day and UTS students for the SuperLux: Smart Light Cities exhibition at Sydney Customs House 2015
Beneath the glass floor of the Atrium at Customs House, the spectacular Sydney City model is dynamically represented by Mike Day with a new arrangement of moving laser lights suggesting the energy of citizens activating the scaled-down streets and structures. Low energy LED pinspots are used to highlight George Street as the historic and soon to be revitalised living spine of the city centre.
NOCTURNAL NUANCES
In a new temporary illumination scheme by Mike Day, warm white and cool white light from low energy LED luminaires washes across selected areas of the Customs House facade, highlighting the fine sandstone ornamentation of one of Sydney’s architectural gems.