Water Light Graffiti

A Moisture-Sensitive Surface Embedded with LEDs Creates Illuminated Art.

Artist Antonin Fourneau has been working at the Digitalarti Artlab in Paris creating Water Light Graffiti system.

 The device utilizes a giant matrix of LEDs embedded in a moisture-sensitive panel that when exposed to water causes the lights inside to instantly illuminate. The fun thing is that almost anything becomes a temporary paintbrush: a wet hand, a squirt gun, a paintbrush or even an atomizer. Water Light Graffiti was recently put on display in Poitiers, France.

African Queens theme photo shoot by Namsa Leuba

Commissioned by New York Magazine’s ‘The Cut‘, African Queens is a photography series by Swiss photographer Namsa Leuba which is an attempt of showcasing the African culture through the lens of the Occident. 

Leuba spent two years in Africa where she had the opportunity to research and closely experience African culture. She also captured some very interesting images which were inclined towards a highly creative expression.

 Leuba shot the entire series in her mother’s hometown of Conakry where a group of local women were dressed with a knitted fashion garments provided by The Cut. “Upon receiving The Cut’s shipment of clothing, Leuba requested some large, colorful necklaces.

She then plucked a trio of women off the street in Paris, explaining, “Most of the time, models are too skinny,” but when one didn’t show up to Leuba’s studio, Leuba stood in for her. 

Using Topshop and Carven sweaters as skirts, putting wood planks in a Thom Browne jacket, tying her models together with rope, and styling a broom as a mohawk, Leuba elaborated on her idea of African statues, this time from a fashion perspective.”

lighting installation

 ‘Unwoven Lights’ & ‘Capturing Resonance’ are installations by Korean artist Soo Sunny Park. 

• Park is best known for using quotidian building materials such as insulation, dry wall, and mesh screens to create experiential installations that rely on repetition and the interplay of light and materials to sublime effect.

• For Capturing Resonance, Park has similarly transformed a ubiquitous and obdurate material – chain link fencing – into something transcendent.

• By affixing thousands of iridescent acrylic Plexiglas squares into chain link cells, Park created a sprawling, undulating structure that transmits, reflects, and refracts both the natural and artificial light into the gallery.

Capturing Resonance is hanging from the third floor ceiling, Capturing Resonance fills the narrow space. The cascading, interlocking convex and concave Plexi and chain link fence units appear as biomorphic forms, overwhelming the field of vision of each visitor as they enter the gallery. Depending on the time of day, rainbow hued shadows fill the space, shifting from crisp representations of the structure to abstract colour washes with the path of the sun. In Capturing Resonance, shifting light becomes a sculptural material and a symbol of transient physical and psychological states. 

In Capturing Resonance, Park and Topel have fused visual and sonic elements in a sensorial environment that captures the dynamic interactions between light, sound, and human presence. Transforming an already architecturally in-between space, Park and Topel filter the non-physical conditions of the site – light and movement – through sculptural and aural forms to create a site-specific and responsive architectonic installation that continually shifts and transforms in relation to perspective, time, and presence.

 

As visitors proceed through the interstitial – or in-between – space, motion sensors in the installation respond by activating different auditory ‘states’ that vary in both intensity and frequency. Layering an audio dimension onto Capturing Resonance, Topel blends whispering chords, soft tonal washes, and elongated instrumental sounds in a continuous and ever-changing composition that responds to human interaction. Depending on the number of people in the space, the musical states increase or decrease accordingly, and create a site-responsive installation. Hightech Holosonic Audio Spotlight panels and low-frequency bass exciters installed throughout the gallery, work together with the sculptural forms to create an experience of dematerialized or ethereal space. 

‘Unwoven Lights’ installation is suspended from the walls and ceiling, thirty-seven individually sculpted units are arranged as a graceful, twisting flow of abstract form. There are no coloured plexi used in the work. It is an optical illusion, depending on the intensity of light hitting the plexi and the viewer’s viewing angle, each plexi piece bounces colour differently. Unwoven Light captures light and causes it to reveal itself, through colourful reflections and refractions on the installations surfaces and on the gallery floor and walls.

Animating the gallery’s’ generous space, transforming it into a shimmering world of light, shadow, and brilliant colour. The liberty shows how both natural and artificial light change when viewed at a certain angle or at a different time of day.

The structure of chain link fencing is similar to the grid of fibres arranged horizontally and vertically on a weaving loom. However, Park uses the grid structure as a means to “unweave.” Wired into each open cell of the chain link is a cut-out shape of iridescent Plexiglas. Iridescence in nature is seen in the sheen of peacock feathers, fish scales, and butterfly wings, appearing as a myriad of colours that appear to change with the angle at which they are viewed. Here the iridescent properties of the coated Plexiglas serve to unweave light, each shape turning from clear to colourful in lights presence.

This large-scale installation utilizes the intense natural light in the gallery with the flow of museum visitors through this transitional space to create an ever-changing sculptural.

Light-emitting diodes (led’s)

An LED is often small in area (less than 1 mm2), and integrated optical components may be used to shape its radiation pattern.

Appearing as practical electronic components in 1962, the earliest LEDs emitted low-intensity infrared light. Infrared LEDs are still frequently used as transmitting elements in remote-control circuits, such as those in remote controls for a wide variety of consumer electronics. The first visible-light LEDs were also of low intensity, and limited to red. Modern LEDs are available across the visible, ultraviolet, and infrared wavelengths, with very high brightness.

Early LEDs were often used as indicator lamps for electronic devices, replacing small incandescent bulbs. They were soon packaged into numeric readouts in the form of seven-segment displays, and were commonly seen in digital clocks.

Recent developments in LEDs permit them to be used in environmental and task lighting.

LEDs have many advantages over incandescent light sources including –

• Lower energy consumption,
• Longer lifetime,
•  Improved physical robustness,
• Smaller size, and
• Faster switching

Light-emitting diodes (led’s) are now used in applications as diverse as aviation lighting, automotive headlamps, advertising, general lighting, traffic signals, and camera flashes. However, LEDs powerful enough for room lighting are still relatively expensive, and require more precise current and heat management than compact fluorescent lamp sources of comparable output.

LEDs have allowed new text, video displays, and sensors to be developed, while their high switching rates are also useful in advanced communications technology.

Flashing led

Most flashing LEDs emit light of one colour, but more sophisticated devices can flash between multiple colours and even fade through a colour sequence using RGB colour mixing.

Bi-colour LED

Two different LED emitters in one case.

A decorative garden light that changes colour.

Tri-colour led

Three different LED emitters in one case. Each emitter is connected to a separate lead so they can be controlled independently.

RGB led

Tri-colour LEDs with red, green, and blue emitters, in general using a four-wire connection with one common lead.

Decorative multicolour led

Incorporate several emitters of different colours supplied by only two lead-out wires. Colours are switched internally simply by varying the supply voltage.

Alphanumeric led

Available in seven-segment, starburst and dot-matrix format. Seven-segment displays handle all numbers and a limited set of letters. Starburst displays can display all letters. Dot-matrix displays typically use 5x7 pixels per character.

Digital RGB led

These are RGB LEDs that contain their own "smart" control electronics. These are connected in a daisy chain, with the data in of the first LED sourced by a microprocessor, which can control the brightness and colour of each LED independently of the others. They are used in strings for Christmas and similar decorations.

INOVATION IN FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

Javelle and Ida are food photographers.

They decided to take their works on step further; by adding the element of a fantasy narrative to the common subjects they shoot every day.

MINIMIAM is a playful series of 60 diptychs that honours the day to day beauty in what we eat. Derived from a combination of the words for “miniature” and “yummy” in French.

MINIMIAM invites the viewer into a fantastical world. They uses train model miniature figures, which are 1/87 scale, to throw off perspective and allow the fantastical settings to appear more realistic once captured on film.

In the world of MINIMIAM, eggs are mountains and doughnuts are a terrain in which to golf on, Skaters ride the bowl of a sliced avocado, and bicyclists around hills of eggs. 

Other pieces celebrate the bright colours of vegetables, using red peppers as a brilliant fire that miniature firemen attempt to tame.

 

Miniature art gallery visitors marvel at peanut sculptures on pedestals, while a miniature artist works nearby on a shelled peanut with hammer and chisel.

LightRails......

The 18th Street underpass features delicate Art Deco architectural details, and passes through the popular Railroad Park in Birmingham. 

It connects two major areas of the city, the Parks District and the city centre. Fitzgibbons’ installation is intended to guide the way between the two areas by welcoming visitors with his vibrant public art. 

The LED network is made up of 250 units, all linked to a computerized system that allows Fitzgibbons to program 16 million different colours and frequencies. 

Specific programs can be scheduled for specific times, allowing Fitzgibbons to control the mood of the tunnel through colour and movement. The undersides of the underpass are smooth and flat, making for the perfect projection surface.

Creating a warm and glowing rainbow art installation through the dark tunnel.

 Light Rails also serves a function by lighting up the dark shadows of the covered walkway. The changing lights encourage pedestrians and bicyclists to feel safe will traversing from one area of Birmingham to the next.

                                      

Christmas Lights and Decorations in London

London twinkles over the winter time with an array of magical Christmas light displays and decorations to brighten up Christmas.

Every year the lights have a different theme. For the first time in five years the world famous Christmas lights in Oxford Street will undergo a glittering transformation inspired by snowflakes. While at Greenwich the switch on will be accompanied by a lantern parade.