The light artist I chose was Bill FitzGibbons. FitzGibbons is from San Antonio and has done many pieces close by in the southern United States. FitzGibbons works primarily utilize LED lights as their light sources but he has used other light mediums in the past. He formerly used neon lights as his primary method, however this medium came with drawbacks. The first drawback that neon tubing is very fragile, the brittle glass tubes made it difficult to orient the lights in the desired way. Another obstacle that came with using neon tubing was that there was a limited amount of colors that can be used. When LEDs grew to prominence the possibilities for Fitzgibbons pieces were seemingly endless. Early in his career FitzGibbons also did several art pieces involving explosions with water or other materials. Most of FitzGibbons work with LEDs has been featured in public pieces some being permanent, others temporary.
The first piece I focused on in my presentation was called the Centro Chroma Tower. The tower is located in the Centro Plaza Transit center in San Antonio, Texas. The tower stands at eighty feet tall and is covered LEDs that are controlled by computer. The tower also has an interactive feature at two of the towers bottom panels. The panels track the movements of the users hands and the LEDs change colors accordingly, this is shown in my presentation on the Centro Chroma Tower slide. The materials used in the tower are steel, aluminum plates, glass, plexiglass, and LEDs. One of the goals of the piece was to a beacon to people nearby, and FitzGibbons’ use of light helped achieve this goal. In this, like many of his others FitzGibbons used light to emphasize the features of a structure, in this case he used the towers height to his advantage.
The next piece I focused on is called LightRails, which features a tunnel being illuminated by various, color changing lights. The tunnel is located in Birmingham, Alabama, and was meant to make the tunnel more inviting for pedestrians. The tunnel is equipped with 150 LED fixtures fitted between the columns of the tunnel. The material of the tunnel which is white complements the various flashing/color changing lights used in the piece. The video of the piece included in my presentation shows someone walking through the tunnel, showing the lights from afar as well as a close up view of the fixtures in between each column.
Another one of FitzGibbons pieces that I researched was Knoxville Colorline. As the name suggests the piece was located in Knoxville Tennessee and was made for the Knoxville art museum. This was a temporary piece that FitzGibbons made for an exhibition held there. Once again this piece was made using LEDs and it was intended to complement the structure of the museum building. Lights shown from the steplike side of the building, changing and flashing throughout the light show. The light show lasted about thirty minutes and was meant to light up the building for all of downtown Knoxville to see.
Kinetic Skyline is another piece that FitzGibbons made in his home town of San Antonio. The piece is the largest light sculpture in San Antonio and is on the Bank of America Plaza Building which stands at about 390 feet. The piece was programmed with various different light patterns, there are ten patterns that corresponds to different holidays throughout the year. FitzGibbons wanted to use the lights of the piece to emphasize the stair step bays of the building, as he usually highlights the features of structures.
The Katonah lights is another one of FitzGibbons prominent pieces. The piece was featured in an exhibition called “Shattered Glass.” The project highlights the simplistic design of the building. In addition to this the weathered state of the building also emphasized the the bright flashing lights. The light was produced by LEDs that were placed behind the building’s two frosted glass windows.
Sources
Bill FitzGibbons Artist – Home – Bill FitzGibbons, San Antonio Artist
Bill FitzGibbons Biography – Bill FitzGibbons on artnet
Bill FitzGibbons: Knoxville Colorline – Knoxville Museum of Art (knoxart.org)
San Antonio artist’s ‘Kinetic Skyline’ will light up downtown building Thursday (mysanantonio.com)