Compounded Light
I pay attention to new visual influences in art and in popular media and I wanted provide you with some images that illustrate a notable use of light sources. It will be interesting to see how many more times this usage emerges. If you come across additional examples, please add them in the comments below…
The first time I saw this use of light was at the new MOMA in 2006. Jeff Wall’s ‘After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the Preface’ depicts one of the most well known scenes from the novel. In this the character says, “My hole is warm and full of light. Yes, full of light. I doubt if there is a brighter spot in all New York than this hole of mine, and I do not exclude Broadway. Or the Empire State Building on a photographer’s dream night… In my hole in the basement there are exactly 1,369 lights.”
Next, the photographer Abigail Feldman’s portfolio contained this image of the candle. While the impact of the light is subdued by not being compounded from many light sources, the gleam has a similar feel.
Chris Burden’s sculpture “Urban Light” composed of a gridded cluster of restored cast-iron street lamps is like a radiant cloud, serenely blotting out all darkness. Walking inside the sculpture one is enmeshed in ubiquitous shine. See it at the the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Lastly, in Martin Scorcese’s Shine a Light, he does. Whiting out the Beacon theater by igniting fierce arc lights during the concert, detail flies away and you the viewer become ineradicably exposed.
