Final Paper!

In April 2011, I went to the Nevada Museum of Art to see Leo Villareal’s exhibit Animating Light. I was taken to another world by some of his pieces, and he awakened my mind to the artistic possibilities of lights. So he was one of the artists I chose to explore in the digital aspect of art, and I was searching for someone who uses a similar medium for my second artist when I discovered Erwin Redl.

Erwin Redl

Erwin Redl was born in 1963 in Gfӧhl, Lower Austria. He actually studied electronic music and composition in Vienna at the University of Music and Performing Arts before moving into the visual realm. He moved to the United States and graduated in 1995 from New York’s School of the Visual Arts, where he studied computer art. He now resides and works in New York. I contacted Redl asking how much his electronic music background influences his work, and whether one preexists or if he makes them together. Within two days he replied with a great explanation of the relation between musical and visual media:

“it is an integrated, synaesthetic process where I play with abstract structures, geometries or proportions that apply to both media simultaneously. I am not working with songs or images and then match them. It’s all pretty abstract and very sensual at the same time.”

Nocturnal Flow (2005)

In his works, Redl composes genuine computer codes to program LED lights. These lights either hang or are mounted on a structure, but almost all of them are arranged in a square grid. Some of the pieces change colors according to these programs, such as his “Fade I,” which transitions between red and blue, or “Nocturnal Flow,” an 85-foot-tall brick structure in Washington’s Paul G. Allen center that changes colors according to sensors that read the ambient weather. Some of Redl’s other pieces remain a single color, but rely more on their structure for artistic impact. In many of his “Matrix” pieces, the viewer can actually enter the structure and be almost engulfed by the hundreds of small, bright lights.

Matrix II (2000)

Erwin Redl’s works have often been large scale projects that either take up an entire wall or room. In “Dots,” hundreds of bright white fiber optic lights hang in a line along the upper corner of a room, and in “Crystal Matrix” the lights in a room turn on and off and change colors to an electronic soundtrack that plays. He has done a few different versions of “Fade,” and has so far completed fourteen different parts to his “Matrix” project. For this particular paper, I focused on “Matrix II.” Completed in 2002, it is now on display at New York’s Riva gallery. This installation is a 36 x 36 x 12 foot room that is filled wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with green LED lights. They are arranged in a grid that creates a sort of optical illusion, making all the corners appear to recede and diminish away from the viewer. People are invited to move throughout the room and lights to enhance their “digital experiences,” as Redl hopes to accomplish. It produces a level of interactivity in the way that many artists attempt to convey with various participative systems. I have never personally experienced this piece but I could imagine it being mesmerizing and a bit dizzying, but quite an adventure in thousands of tiny piercing green lights.

Leo Villareal

As previously mentioned, the artist whose work really enlightened me was Leo Villareal. He was born in 1967 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. He has a BA in sculpture from Yale University, and was part of the Interactive Telecommunications Program in New York’s Tisch School of the Arts. The renowned “light sculptor” works out of New York but has installations around the world and is represented by Gering and Lopez Gallery (New York), Conner Contemporary Art (Washington, DC), and Galeria Javier Lopez (Madrid). In 1997 he brought a large metal platform with 16 blinding strobe lights to Burning Man and it served as a sort of beacon to campers. With its positive reception, this “Strobe Matrix” inspired Villareal to delve into the art medium he utilizes today – LED, strobe, fluorescent, and neon lights mounted on structures and often covered with translucent Plexiglas. He generates algorithms that turn these lights on and off or cue random color transitions. Some of his works consist of only white lights that flicker or assemble and disperse, and some of them have vivid colors that change spontaneously in quiet ambiance. Each piece creates an “aura,” as Walter Benjamin would have called it, that represents Villareal’s voice but also has the ability to transform randomly and be interpreted differently by everyone. They range greatly in shapes and sizes – from fluorescent tubes to 2-foot-diameter circle mounts to entire walls and ceilings. Whatever their variety, all of Villareal’s projects have great movement and portray endless energy and genesis of life.

Multiverse (2008)

Among widespread exhibitions, Villareal has ornamented the San Francisco Bay Bridge for its 75^th Anniversary with his stunning lights, and he recently used the entire downtown-facing façade of the Tampa Museum of Art for his piece “Sky.” His most appalling work to date is “Multiverse,” a display of 40,000 white LEDs that line the walls and ceiling of a concourse in the National Gallery of Art. This complex light sculpture is unique to Villareal in its extravagance and the fact that his viewers are for once not stationary and rather move through this piece. The work I chose to discuss further in this paper is “Diamond Sea,” which I had gotten a chance to see in person. It is a 10 x 15 foot rectangle of mirror-finished stainless steel that secures 2,400 white LEDs into a tight grid. The lights are programmed to slowly dim and brighten, giving the piece an appearance of rolling, twinkling waves in a shiny abyss since the piece is displayed in a dark room. Though he has many ambient, colorful pieces I was attracted to, “Diamond Sea” was simply entrancing. I could not find an e-mail address for Villareal, however I e-mailed the Gering and Lopez gallery to ask how to contact the artist and also where any upcoming exhibitions would be. I have not yet received a reply.

Diamond Sea (2007)

Both Leo Villareal and Erwin Redl utilize their own computer codes to program transitions in their artwork. The medium of light is not used commonly in art, but both of these men have mastered the degree of stimulation it can produce. Though Redl’s “Matrix II” does not incorporate sound, it is important to note that some of his pieces do, and his work is very influenced by music. None of Villareal’s pieces involve sound, which is probably a good thing because the visual movement is already so enticing. For “Diamond Sea,” as with all of Villareal’s works (with the exception of “Multiverse”), the viewer sits or stands stationary while watching the ever-changing lights. This is almost the exact opposite of how “Matrix II” is experienced, since the lights are stationary while the viewers are able to explore different views and angles by moving throughout the piece. It seems, however, that both projects allow for exploration and adventure – “Diamond Sea” is just more directed by the artist and the exploration is within oneself as it is watched.

Redl appears to use basic colors in the majority of his pieces. I believe this is extremely successful since his lights are very uniform, bright, and pinpointed in their grid. Visually, this has a huge impression because the eye focuses on these simple, tiny LEDs and can produce illusions or overwhelming stimulation. Rather than having extreme definition between lights, Villareal seems to generally use larger, more blending and colorful effects. In “Diamond Sea,” one can see that the tiny monochromatic grid may resemble Redl’s work. However, the fact that they are so close together and dim randomly, combined with the reflections off the mirrored background, produces a more spread out, blurred light effect. Though the two artists use the same medium and digital strategy for programming transitions, the few contrasts make for a very different experience while viewing each of their pieces. Erwin Redl and Leo Villareal are both pioneers in the artistic field of light, portraying the beauty of “controlled randomness” in nature through new age digital technology.

Works Cited:

"Leo Villareal." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Mar. 2012. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Villareal>.

"Leo Villareal:Bio." Leo Villareal:Bio. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.villareal.net/bio.html>.

"Leo Villareal." San Jose Museum of Art. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.sjmusart.org/content/leo-villareal>.

"Portfolio Erwin Redl." Paramedia.net. Erwin Redl, 2009. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.paramedia.net/portfolio/index.htm>.

"Erwin Redl." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Mar. 2012. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Redl>.

"Erwin Redl." Computer Science & Engineering. University of Washington, 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.cs.washington.edu/building/art/ErwinRedl/>.

"Erwin Redl." Lights on Tampa. City of Tampa, Art Programs Division. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.lightsontampa.org/p/artist/erwin-redl>.