'Are you in or out?' | outdoor light installation

Outdoor audio-visual installation for ALingsås light festival 2022

- created during a 10-day long workshop -

"Are you in or out?"

Lighting team: Ana Nichita, Lisa Verhoeven, Luis Felipe Suarez Roca, Revati Bheemarao Limbavali, Solenne Bermudez, Vanessa Kervezee

Electrical team: Emil Johansson, Eliiot Panovic Nells, Arvid Skarp, Hamza Ak Akwany

Equipment sponsors: Meyer, Fergin, SGM, Martin / Harman, Traxon, Luxlight
Sound design: Sebastian Studnitzky

Programming: Bertil Göransson

Location: Alingsås, Sweden
Project Year: 2022

About the festival

Only One Earth. 7.9 Billion Reflections was the theme for 'Lights in Alingsås' 2022, the festival's 23rd edition.

Reflections is a word that symbolizes the very origin of change. When light is reflected, it spreads, and even changes course. Just like when we reflect on a thought and that thought generates new ideas, dreams, and insights. This year, Lights in Alingsås wants to illuminate the endless possibilities encapsulated in the reflections of 7.9 billion people.

Site

- The Nolhaga labyrinth in Alingsås city -

"Labyrinths are found both in nature and in buildings. A labyrinth is a walk into the unknown. It attracts the imagination. The Nolhaga Labyrinth is a stone labyrinth of old Old Norse type (Baltic labyrinth), a journey through history up to today, then a journey into the future."

[with reference to the inscriptions on one of the labyrinth's boulders]

Design vision

As analysed, the labyrinth shows us both the gravity of the planet and its fragility. It allows us to think. To explore and to reflect. We walked into it and we came out a different person. This transition or transformation is about the earth, but also about ourselves, the people.

The lighting installation will therefore aim at being a comment on the earth's fragility, as a whole, and of us, as individuals.

Design approach

Chromatic shadow creation was tested and used, in order to realize the vision. The labyrinth was therefore transformed into a playground that sought to be explored from various physical perspectives.

Testing

- color -

- materiality -

Lighting design

- extracts from the running dynamic sequences -

The labyrinth shows us both the gravity of the planet and its fragility. It allows us to think. To explore and to reflect. We walk into it and we come out a different person. This transition or transformation is about the earth, but also ourselves the people. This lighting installation is therefore a comment on the earth's fragility, as a whole, and of us, as individuals.

When you approach the bridge, you can already feel the power of the labyrinth. The journey through the site starts with this transition from town towards nature and the center of the labyrinth. Surrounding the labyrinth, the symbol of unity is represented by the shimmery line of subtle reflections. Defining its shape but without creating a dividing line, their shimmer is always noticeable and shining through between the boulders.

For the labyrinth, the paradoxical qualities of fire-ice [temperature] and sunrise-sunset [time] inspired the dynamic lighting scenes were brought in to illustrate the volatile nature of time and temperature. This highlights humans’ part in ecological turmoil and the nature of time—as well as how time could be running out.

The semi-transparent mesh sculpture at the center of the labyrinth is a trigger for imagination and reflection and has a constantly changing appearance due to the shifting light, its focus and our own movement through the stones. The dual colors shining on it represent the duality, support by layers of sound that vary as you walk around.

Having transitioned through the space and given the opportunity to reflect upon it we are asking: Are you in or out?