Visitors create brilliant colored holographic shadows as they pass through the light.

Aurora

Aurora is a commissioned permanent light installation for Sayer Fine Art LLC, New York. Working with Rohm and Haas, the manufacturers of Plexiglas®, a special formulation of PMMA plastic was designed to reproduce optical and spectral properties similar to ice.

Synthetic crystal arrangement, with computer controlled projections, and anodized steel armature. The shadow interference of a human body generates shifting color patterns that tracetheir movement. Size: 16'x 10'

Visitors created brilliant colored holographic shadows as they pass between the work and a massive 19th century French Baroque gilt mirror.

Macro-closeup of large crystals with colors generated by visitors shadows. Size: 4in x 6in

Formulated, then cured in a high-pressure, high-temperature autoclave, the PMMA material is first cast into both 4" x 4" x 24" thick slabs. 

The PMMA slab plastic is then CNC machined to create elaborate matrixes of crystal like patterns. Once finished with machining, they are polished with hydrogen flame. The large crystal like slabs are then stacked and bolted into custom fabricated steel frames with footers, with smaller cells laminated and placed on articulated arms forming large geometric arrays.

The installed structures were rear-illuminated with a computer controller 12V lighting system, with the light being reflected off a 12' tall 19th century Baroque hall mirror. The lighting system used four controllable polarized projectors, each with ¼ wave plates. By projecting polarized light with four separate planes of vibration, the additive nature of the four light sources made the material produce shimmering clear white light.

Thin cell synthetic crystal array, with computer controlled projections, and anodized steel armature. The shadow interference of a human body generates constantly shifting color patterns tracking their movement. Size: 10'x 8'

As visitors pass through the foyer in front of the mirror, the shadows from their body would interrupt one or more planes of vibration of polarized light and produce changing spectral colors inside the PMMA crystal material in the shape of a holographic moving shadow. Their proximity and position in the light would carve out overlapping three dimensional colors In the installation making the work interactive across time, space, color and light.