Luzinterruptus is an anonymous artistic group based in Madrid, Spain. The group carries out urban interventions in public spaces by using light as the raw material and night as the canvas. The group began placing their installations in 2008 with the goal of shining light on problems that seemed to go unseen by the average authority or citizen.

The group uses light as the medium to draw the attention of people, and then utilize irony and humor to help audiences reflect on the message. The materials used are basic discarded materials that can be recycled and leave no trace in the landscape. Their installations are typically short-lived and once the pieces are taken down, the public spaces remain unchanged. They generally do not advertise the pieces, so it is somewhat of a present for people that come across them. Common themes seen throughout their installations are the negative environmental impact of plastic waste, social injustice on behalf of authorities, and the wastefulness of art installations.

Festival de Bordeaux
This installation was made to help visualize the excess plastic we use regularly. Practically everything we consume is contained and packaged in plastic waste, or particles of it exist in the meat we ingest. The French government has outlawed the use of plastic bags in stores, so in a final goodbye, the anonymous group visited city store warehouses and gathered more than 6,000 plastic bags for the piece. The piece remained for 4 days and the dismantled fragments were recycled.

This installation has been recreated in a few locations including Barcelona, Buenos Aires, and Madrid. It is an immersive labyrinth made of used plastic bottles of mineral water and soda contained in plastic bags and lit with LED strips. The piece was intended to feel disorienting and radiate a warm unpleasant used plastic smell. Its intent is to spark conversation about the excessive use and disposal of plastic products. Once dismantled, all the plastic was sorted by color, recycled, and sent back to the manufacturers.

Madrid, Spain
This piece was created with the intent of improving dangerous public spaces. They went around the city seeking locations that were seemingly dark and dangerous for women to walk through alone at night. Maxi pads with red LED’s were chosen due to their preposterous image in advertisements where maxi pads are associated with feelings of “safety, comfort, happiness, a good smell, lightness, clouds, or the color blue or pink, but almost never the color red.” Using this positive association, the locations can be made safe by the placement of maxi pads. The artists also found that the pads had the effect on male passersby that “looked away and picked up their pace feeling somehow awkward and annoyed by the situation”.

Madrid, Spain 2014
This piece was made after the drafting and passing of the Citizen Security Law, commonly known as the “Gag Law” that criminalized insulting or disseminating images of police officers. It also allowed police to fine anyone that refused to dissolve meetings and protests in public spaces. To protest against this law, the artists created an intervention that showed a “not too distant scenario, in which an omnipresent police force, controls out behavior in a completely besieged public space.” This piece was made using 200 roast chicken containers, cellophane paper, and flashing LED’s.