Month: March 2018

For my project, I will be focusing on using glowing florescent yeast and  strains to make light art. I have access to Professor Young’s stocks of glowing microbes, so I will be making art, in petri dishes, at Gateway.

Logistics

The microbes produce various strains of florescent proteins. These proteins need to first absorb light to gain the energy they need to emit light. For example, a green florescent protein, or GFP, needs to receive light at an approximately 383 nm wavelength, which is blue-ultraviolet light. In return, GFP will emit a strong green light, at about 509 nm. Because of this, I will need either the correct-colored LEDs, or white LEDs and the appropriate spectra filters to make my art visible.

 

I have a few ideas that I would like to try out to make light art:

Painting

This is the least intensive method for making light art:

1. Culture the correct FP-coding cells
2. Draw the image on a petri dish (under sterile hood)
3. Wait (overnight) for the drawing to develop

I would like to see if I can make a time-lapse video of the microbe growth.

Here are some examples of microbe painting from Pinterest:

 

Photonegatives

This technique requires a little bit more of a setup from painting.

1. Create an image in Photoshop
2. Print image on transparent printing sheet
3. Put image on the top of a cell culture dish
4. Seed agar plate with cells
5. Turn on UV radiation with the dish inside the hood.
6. Leave cells for 1 hr +
7. Remove and check the next day for the image

Result are visually stunning though! (This example is also from Pinterest):

I made a first-pass attempt at this kind of artwork using yeast cells in the lab last week- I definitely need to optimize the process.

I believe this happened because yeast cells are much more robust than the bacteria cells that other artists have used. I am going to try this method with bacteria if I can- they die much easier with UV exposure.

I am also going to buy a UV sterilizing light & expose the yeast to it overnight to see if that works…

3D Printing & Sculpture

If I have time, I would like to try to 3D print non-circular petri dishes to grow my cells in.  In addition, I have an Idea to make a 3D petri dish lamp using an LED as a light source for the yeast grown in the petri dishes.

(Glowing cell culture disco ball???)

The lamp will be a small and roughly circular ball formed from petri dishes attached together. In the middle will be a blue LED; this LED will be the proper wavelength to make the yeast in the ptri dishes glow green. As a result, the lamp will appear dimly yellow from the agar, with glowing green patches where the yeast are, and the natural blue from the LED will shine through the gaps in-between the petri dishes.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any suggestions or other ideas!

When I was working on sound design for a game here last semester, I ended up using induction microphones to capture the electromagnetic fields from electronic devices.

In theory, a color changing bulb will emit different wavelengths as it produces different colors. Dimming and flickering lights should also produce different sonic results.

Using Max MSP, I should be able to control lighting fixtures from a laptop. The induction mics will pick up the changes in lightbulb behavior and send them back into a USB audio interface. From there, further signal processing of the electromagnetic responses can happen inside Max. That audio will then be sent to a speaker system.

I’m curious how the two systems will play off each other. What visuals will “sound good”? Will the desired sound affect the way the lights behave? The visuals would then be informed by what kind of sonic information I want to create — rhythms, pulses, different pitches.

I’m a bit worried on both the cost of the rig, and making sure Max works properly with the equipment. There are custom externals to control DMX via Max already, and I’ve chosen some hardware that already seems to be supported. Still, using open source software tends to always have some weird bugs or problems I couldn’t anticipate. I think the value of learning how to control DMX for future projects makes it worth it — it has a lot of potential for live visuals and installations.

Here’s a little mockup/flowchart of the rig I’m thinking of:

Everett Johnson

For this week we needed to develop 1-3 ideas to be presented for the final project. The three ideas that I will be proposing are an LED head,  a 2-D long exposure printer, and a new Infinity Mirror.

The first of these three is an LED head. This head would be inspired by Makoto Tojiki and his work involving 3 dimensional LED works of art. Including the one shown below. It could also end up being a sort of Exo-skeleton of LED’s that could be worn or just supported. 

The second of the three is a 2-D long exposure printer. This printer would work almost the same as a normal printer except the image it would be producing would be a trace of light or a filler of light that would ultimately create a long exposure image on a camera that is mounted above the printer.

The third and final concept would be a different kind of Infinity Mirror which would have some distinct feature that would set it apart from other infinity mirrors. This could possibly have a design that was laser cut and then made into a infinity mirror with LED s. I was possibly thinking of a laser cut famous person.

Jen Lewin is an internationally renowned light and interactive sculptor. She works in New York City, and over the past 15 years has created works of art that have been featured at many events, solo exhibitions, and publications.

Jen Lewin focused on making pieces of art for the public use. She wants to create experiences that will bring vibrancy to neighborhoods, parks, and public spaces. Her art encourages viewers to engage with her work, allowing viewers to becomes artists themselves as they interact with her pieces.

Aqueous – An interactive landscape of meandering pathways of light

Inspired by the symmetry in natural systems and composed of hundreds of interactive, stand-alone, modular platforms derived from the Golden Ratio.

Controlled from raw code that can process human interaction on each of the independent yet connected platforms.

In the day, Aqueous shifts in color and reflection to mirror the sky within a dichroic surface.

At night, Aqueous flows and glows in full illuminated interactivity.

Aqueous at Burning Man 2017 from Jen Lewin Studio on Vimeo.

The Pool

POOL verb – combine, blend, join, forces, league, merge, put together, share

Lewin’s most famous piece is called The Pool. It consists of giant concentric circles made from interactive circular platforms. The collaborative movements create swirling effects of light and color. This piece contains over 40,000 LEDs and has traveled to over 40 major installations across the globe within the past 6 years. The Pool is inspired by pools, water, the moon, and the sun.

The Pool Around The World from Jen Lewin Studio on Vimeo.

This piece is a permanent, outdoor interactive instrument. Sidewalk Harp is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the By The Match Registry which is a nonprofit National Bone Marrow Donor Program.

 Sidewalk Harp plays by passing your body through the 36 sensors capped with LEDs along the bottom of the 40 foot long form.

Sidewalk Harp from Jen Lewin Studio on Vimeo.

 

Promenade

Part of the Dairy Block Art Collection in Denver, Colorado. Networked platforms form a community within themselves. Promenade reflects the environment in shifting colors during the day and comes alive at night with full LED color interactivity.

“My light sculptures are created from pure light refracted into the brilliant colors of our physical world. Using dichroic glass, which divides the light spectrum, transmitting one color while reflecting its opposite, I create sculptural light paintings with forms and colors that continually evolve, appear and disappear in meditative patterns.” – Deanne Sabeck

Deanne Sabeck is a light artist who focuses on creating light sculptures by utilizing the reflective properties of dichroic glass. She began her art career while studying at Arizona State University where she pursued a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts.  Right out of school, she started using glass as her main medium. She created works that utilized stained glass, glass slumping, fusing, and blowing, and eventually discovered the material known as Dichroic glass. Since this discovery, all of her modern day pieces have included this special type of glass as it allowed her to work much more directly with light.

Being able to work directly with light became one of her great passions and influenced all of her later works. She is quoted as saying “I love the idea of working with the light spectrum itself so directly, as it is really the essence of life” showing the importance that she places on light.

Once she started using dichroic glass she has been commissioned for many public and private pieces, with a fair number of her works featured in healthcare facilities. These works allowed her to spread the feelings of hope and relaxation while cultivating each visitors curiosity and creativity. One of her major themes for many of these pieces comes from the words that she embeds inside her sculptures. Words such as, Illuminate, Inspire, Nourishment, and other uplifting words can be seen in many of her pieces. She hopes that these words in her sculptures will cause the viewers to really think about what each of these words means and she hopes to inspire creative thinking regarding these words.

Deanne Sabeck also does some work for charity. Her Raindrop Project consists of hundreds of individual drops of rain, formed from glass and adorned with this dichroic glass. With this piece she aims to highlight the importance of water and the uniqueness of life that water allows to live. Pieces sold from this collection also help donate towards the World Water Fund.

 

About the Artist

Shih Chieh Huang was born in Taiwan. In his childhood he was inspired by the busheling movement and  lights of night markets in Taiwan. From a young age he enjoyed taking apart toys and electronics to learn how they worked. One of his artworks that takes advantage of this is his short film EP-2 which uses sculpture with photo resistor sensors from night light to turn on and off parts of the sculpture when a recorded image of an eye looks in a certain direction. 

Most Notable Works

Reusable Universe is the name of his most resent exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum. This name is significant in two ways, for his use of up-cycling and for the way he reuses his sculptures with slight additions and rearrangements in his new works of art. In this way, his creatures evolve with his

 

Synthetic Microcosm shows some of the same components as Reusable Universe in a more primitive form.

Components

• Materials:

Plastic bags, PC fans, LED rings, LED strips, steel wire, zip ties, plastic containers, aluminum extrusion, copper wiring, tubing, highlighter fluid.

• Technology:

Complex light/fan control program and Custom PCB power distribution board

Tools and Technique

Shih Chieh Huang frequent “up-cycles’ ordinary modern manufactured components into his works of art. He specializes in combining mundane modern materials and technology in creative ways to form complex sculptures.  Here we can see the tupperware container used to house the micro controller and power distribution board for many of his sculptures.

Concepts and Ideas

Inspired by deep sea life after his fellowship at the Smithsonian where he worked with preserved deep sea creatures. Many of his works have an organic feel especially when taken in from a distance then only when the observer gets closer can they see the complex circuitry that makes his sculptures possible. This way he manages to capture some of the magic of exotic organic creatures through extremely inorganic means. 

Use of sound

Shih Chieh Huang’s work also takes advantage of passive auditory effects to form part of the surreal experience. Seductive evolution takes advantage of the mechanical relays that turn on and off the different parts of the sculpture to create a perfectly synchronized sound.

 

Hi everyone, I am Duong. And today I will give an overview about Peter Erskine and his Light Artwork. At first when hearing about Light Art, I only think about using artificial material such as LED laser and other material to make Art, so when I came across Peter Erskine Artwork, I felt not only amaze but also admiral by his work. He does not use LED or any human made light source but he used the basics and we most familiar with: the sunlight to make art.

His idea is very simple, using light to make art, not only that his art also has deep meaning into them.His art is also about light and shadow, nature and human, life and death.  Based on three big idea: Sunlight is energy, all life is solar powered and everything is connected to everything else.

SOS made during the 1990, so 20 30 years ago, however it is still very relevant till now. His project is about global warming, warning human about it by showing the beauty of sunlight and nature but also raised a question: Can our children played in the sunlight. With all global warming and ozone depletion, it is a question that humanity have to face right now and in the future. S.O.S. addresses the beauty and dangers of Sunlight: the beauty of the rainbow and photosynthesis, and the dangers of global warming and mass species extinction.

For this SOS, Peter Erskine stated himself that people love his pieces because of its natures that they love about it, it is inside human ourselves, not because his art has incredible technique. He feels like I just present nature to people in a different way and because of human nature, they just love it. One way to describe this artwork is like what walking in the rainbow.  

As I mentioned before, his artwork is from 20 30 years ago, but glass and lighting technique that he used has been developed for hundreds of years.

His technique is simple but what he really wants is to make the used out of existing structure for example in ancient Rome to produce more beautiful and different way to looking at this architecture.

He also has many other project such as project made in library or the Rainbow Sundial Calendar where instead of using the old, ancient way of making a sun clock using shadow, instead using sunlight pass through prism to determine time of the day.

Presentation Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/133G-we7ZdLpsZiL_arK7uam6G1lIE-sdqRc1VMeBhnY/edit?usp=sharing 

Jim Campbell was born in Chicago in 1956. He went to college at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and graduated in 1978 with Bachelor degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. Out of college, Campbell began working as a filmmaker and has since transitioned into working as an engineer. He mainly works with image processing and holds over 12 patents in the field. In 1988, Campbell decided to showcase his talents with film, electronics and image processing by creating light art.

In his pieces he likes to use low resolution LED displays or screens. On these displays, Campbell likes to incorporate live video and video recording. He also likes to use re-imaging techniques that he learned as an engineer. In addition, almost all of his artwork requires custom electronics and programming that he develops on his own in his studio. More recently, Campbell has been experimenting with what he calls topographic works, which transform 2-D video into 3-D light sculptures. He does this by projecting 2-D video onto a 3-D surface.

Campbell also has focused on some concepts and ideas that are captured in his artwork. These concepts include interactive art or viewer control, memory and time, desire and power, and simple forms, figures and shapes. His following creations will showcase these different concepts.

The first piece, shown below, is titled “Shadow.” Campbell created this piece from 1993 to 1994 and was inspired by viewer control, desire, and simple forms. The display consists of a Buddhist statue enclosed inside a glass box with a light source. From far away, the glass box is clear and the viewer can see inside. Looking for more detail, the viewer can approach the box, but as you get closer, the glass becomes foggy and clouded, forcing the viewer to only focus on the silhouette of the figure. This piece challenges viewer control and plays with what the viewer desires to see in the piece.

 

 

 

 

The next creation is titled, “Home Movies David,” and was created by Campbell in 2014. This is a more recent version of similar pieces he has done before. In this work he uses a low resolution LED screen and displays a series of home videos of a child growing up. In this particular piece, the child’s name is David, and he was born a year before Campbell was. Campbell likes this work because he can relate to many of the things shown in the video. The concept and idea behind this creation was to illustrate memory and time. Although Campbell creates his works for personal satisfaction, he hopes that other viewers may feel the same way and be able to relate to his artwork.

 

Campbell’s following art sculpture is an example of one of his  topographic works. The sculpture itself is a topographic reconstruction of a wave in the ocean. Additionally, a video of a moving wave is projected onto the 3-D surface from behind the piece using a programmed, low-resolution LED screen. In this art sculpture, Campbell focuses on a simple form, a wave, and transforms it into this mesmerizing display of art and creativity.

 

Lastly, the installation shown in the picture below was designed by Campbell in 2014. It is currently on display in the San Diego Airport. This visually impressive artwork is about 700 feet long and captures travelers’ attention as they walk through the airport. The piece is a massive low-resolution LED screen. For this piece, Campbell displays videos of a few different things. He shows videos of swimmers, filmed from the bottom of a pool, birds flying in the sky, and other images of people walking or jogging. This is another example of a piece that focuses on simple figures and shapes that can be identified on the low-resolution display.

 

The following video provides more information about Jim Campbell. Campbell also describes some of his inspirations and techniques that he uses to create his artwork and explains why he creates his pieces.

Makoto Tojiki is a Japanese light artist in Chiba, Japan who primarily works with LED sculptures. Tojiki studied industrial design and then worked as an in house designer. After that he became a full time artist starting in 2003. Tojiki is best known for his technique and style of vertical LED strands that are selectively placed to create a 3D shell of an object. His most popular series “No Shadow” makes use of this technique. Shown below are some pieces in the “No Shadow” series.

Tojiki has stated that he is interested in perception and how the memory of different perceptions of the same object conflict with new observations of the object. In the “No Shadow” series as the viewer walks around the piece the perceived  3D surfaces in the work change and give more tangible and fulfilling sense. Additionally the perspective changes different parts of the sculpture are highlighted where the LEDs overlap more, creating a sense of shadow with only light.

Tokiji has also used other techniques, such as shining lasers in mist in his work “man in the rain”. This approach causes the piece to change form as the mist moves and reflects the lasers differently. From a stationary point of view the perception of the piece changes. This constant change makes it difficult to define the form of the sculpture.

Another technique Tojiki has used is binding optical fibers with resin to make a sculpture. In his piece “no title” there are two sculptures of a person in white and black optical fiber were there are sections from each sculpture missing. However the other sculpture, when aligned right, is a compliment of the other sculpture and together form a whole. By defining light and shadow with two complementing sculptures Tojiki is able to explore how light and shadow interact to define a single form.

 

Jenny Holzer is an American artist best known for her work with LED displays and large scale text projections. Her work has been displayed globally and often portrays and political theme current with the social environment at the time of the exhibition.

This is a picture of Kurt Cobain standing in front of one of Jenny’s early displays. The theme of utilizing common advertising space for he work is what inspired her to experiment with LED’s based on how prevalent LED signs had become in advertising.  This brought a sense of contemporary familiarity  to her work which drew in people’s attention just as advertisements do.

Her early work included a list of what she described as “Truisms” or quite simply just short statements. These were simple phrases which resonated personally and politically with people. Often these phrases ended up on shirts, stickers, and even condoms. An example of some of her many truisms include:

“Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise”

“A Lot of Professionals Are Crackpots”

“Boredom Makes You Do Crazy Things”

This is a 535-foot-long sign in the Gutenberg displaying Holzer’s Inflammatory Essays, the follow-up series to Truisms, which featured whole paragraphs of text, centering on taboo subjects. Jenny made us of the already existing architecture in the room to fully display her designs and create an additional element. 

An additional example of her work with LED’s exemplifying the motion with the shape of the LED strip she uses.

An example of one of her “Truisms” displayed in the corner of a room utilizing the shadows and angles to create a feeling of darkness.  The light being emitted from the LED’s creates they’re own shadows and the angles and which they are displayed dictates where the shadow will fade in with the rest of the room.

Holzer is also famous for her projections onto various buildings and architectural landmarks. Her work has been displayed from NYC to Europe and everywhere in between. These works are most often political relating to a current ongoing issue in society. Below is a video of Jenny discussing her work with projections.

https://youtu.be/QeOOFKzQxS0

 

This is one of her projections onto one of the Guggenheim buildings. She talks about how when she sets up a projection she can predict some reflections from windows and rivers, but you never really know exactly where the light and shadows will fall.

This is a piece in Washington related to the war in Iraq. Holzer often wrote politcal statements in public statements to raise awareness for causes such as war, hunger, and disease. Jenny is a master at using her voice in her art to combat the wrong she sees in the world, and utilizing light art brings a modernized mechanical twist which is highly enjoyed by her audience.