Light pollution in the world today is an outcome largely of the economic forces at play. If a person can pay for power they can install a light. Although the same is true for most other things – light does not generate as much criticism because of its ability to entertain and hypnotize. If you have ever been to a nightclub, Hiro Yamagata installation, Times Square or a night fair in your local town, you cannot disagree that without light these spaces would be less impressive.

Flicker Forever is an installation that is informed by a short story written by myself that involves an object named Photinus. The story is a fantastical narrative based in the future and addresses the creation of Photinus as well as its many purposes. The three reasons for Photinus’s existence are to destroy light (EMP), inform through light (LCD) and provide light (LED).

The act of Photinus’s creation and its destruction of urban lights is presented in an animation, which is displayed on a LCD screen - embedded inside it. The third and final purpose of providing light manifests itself through lights embedded on the sides that turn on once the animation is finished playing. Ideally the installation would involve a room with water in which Photinus can float and spread a beam of light. The entire story is finally represented as a video sculpture that is capable of floating and generating its own power through photovoltaic cells.

The animation is made using Maya and rendered out with Maxwell render. The piece is 4X3ft in size and is built using the CNC routing process. The material is foam coated with epoxy resin. Within this object is embedded a 5-inch LCD screen and a motion sensor system. The sensor triggers the video to play when there is movement around the object. The entire object is solar powered.

This project arose from my interest in Hindu mythology, every day objects and their purposes, light and its misuse, and philosophies surrounding redemption and guilt, and the inability of our democratic system to solve the issues that affect us.

I was interested in choosing light as a representation of things that are effecting the environment today. Because of the way our society has evolved the term Democracy is interchangeable with capitalism. Light in this piece is a symbol for all kinds of pollution. The world we live in now has reached a point where the so called democratic system is failing every day, but we insist on giving a faulty and defunct system the utmost importance. A perfect example is the Kyoto protocol, which wants to reduce greenhouse gases in a democratic manner by separating the world into divisions and assigning requirements for different annexes. It also exempts countries such as India and China from reducing emissions, which is a third of the world’s population.

The act of destroying all lights in the story Flicker Forever is a statement for change, but yet an act such as this would be a crime because it is undemocratic. For this reason I wanted to embed issues that I was concerned with into characters that would be typically used in pagan tales or ancient mythologies. Thereby excusing them from judgments created by our conscience, which has been initiated by the system that surrounds us.

The object itself uses tropes that are familiar to science fiction, but that fiction is now a reality. The idea that this object is born from a Firefly larva to inform humans about pollution are not so far fetched. Since we are using bioluminescent marine life to inform us about the state of the oceans.

I also wanted to give this object more than one purpose. Most things in the world today are made for a singular need. Lifeboats are made to save people when a ship sinks, bottle openers open bottles, etc. However, until then the lifeboat serves no particular purpose. The different purposes of Photinus acts as a commentary for our failed system where we continue to manufacture things because we can.

My research involved looking at the works of artists Joseph Beuys, olafur elliason, László Moholy-Nagy, Matthew Barney, Rafael hemmer to name a few.

art gallerys

Gallery Space

Ideally I would like to see this thing floating in water in a controlled space. The scene would be set for a time immediately after a tidal flood.
As people walk into the room the screen would light up and display the story about the creation of this piece and then the screen would turn off and the lights would turn on. Spreading a beam over the waters surface

At ITP I would have the same interaction, but on a raised pedestal.

foam, resin, solar, arduino, leds, lcd,

The form is made from foam using a CNC process. it is approximately 4 ft long and 2.5 ft wide and solar powered.