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Left ‘180° of Light’, 2011 by Jo Fairfax (Image: Andrew Hilton). “In my experience often project teams do not have the courage to back an artist to the hilt, they play safe and ask for a diluted version of a proposal – by having too much or asking for modifications which can tick boxes rather than respond to a site.” Above ‘Hryre’, 2011 by Nayan Kulkarni (Image: David Heke). “I enjoy works that give more over-successive viewings. This is about the artist intending to communicate and that those contents are worth engaging with. In the light works that I have enjoyed the most this is often about a radical approach and an unflinching simplicity in delivery.”
seen to have a different approach and here is where we find the hazy line between art and design; to use light rather than to design it and to make technology fit a vision rather than the converse. The artist’s mode of thought is to create an artwork beyond the restrictions of a brief and expand creative project vision through dialogue between architects, designers and users. Kulkarni goes on to say: “Often, ‘artwork’ is used loosely to describe aesthetic light- ing elements that fulfil non functional, façade, spatial animation and enhance- ment. This is not to say that the work I see is not beautiful, spectacular or engaging. Rather, it does not occupy the critical space of contemporary art. I guess that over the last fifteen years or so a hybrid space of art/design production has emerged. Artist’s and designer’s practices have extended out from core disciplinary boundaries. Unfor- tunately the general critical and discursive languages and methods have not kept up pace. Conferences, articles and papers have often examined the interdisciplinarity and collaboration with much less said about the nature of hybridity in practice. So we seem to still have the binary of the visual arts
discourse and the design discourse as a kind of platform. I am surprised by how often I have been challenged to situate projects in a camp (architecture, lighting design, con- temporary art). This means that the reality of practice which is a more fluid journey between ideas, contexts and places is more difficult to articulate.” Acknowledging ‘hybridity’ of practice is important as it allows us to view artwork in its more immediate context of illuminated form rather than examining it as a separate element of a bigger project. If the context of art is a gallery space then the artwork exists for its own sake but if the context is a public space then that space shapes the manner of viewing, or experiencing, the artwork. It is the combination of all sur- rounding elements from surface materials to weather conditions to sound and move- ment that form the momentary atmosphere of the light effect. Naturally, a strong connection between architecture and illumination is important but how far can this be pushed during those initial conversations about lighting? Some of the most exciting lighting installations have been where both structure and illumination
share equal importance in the final aes- thetic. In such a case, the artistic concept exists for the sake of both the lighting and the building. Here again we find the hybrid of art and design; depth of concept and functional delivery meeting a brief. The ultimate success may be regarded as light becoming architecture. The gradual transi- tion from daylight to dark is fully utilised when creative lighting transforms the very structure of a building rather than just il- luminating it; the building is not illuminated – illumination becomes the building. Conceptual and lateral thinking also play an important role in questioning the way we apply lighting in more every-day scenarios. We are exploring new technologies and we should use them differently. Too often the full potential of new lighting products is limited by consumer resistance to change. Communication of meaning through light helps us to reinvent the way we think about lighting. So many light fittings are devel- oped to look, feel and behave like those of previous technologies; there is an onus on artists and designers to challenge the way in which we think about our lit environments and to present lifestyle alternatives.
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