Glowing Light Precedents

Glow Dancers



This may seem like a silly precedent in some ways, but I really enjoy the spatial and illusionistic aspects of this glow performance. By selectively controlling what the audience sees, the dancers can perform any number of 'impossible tricks', but they also directly control our spatial understanding of the dance. We are only able to spatially conceive of what we can see; in this case, it's the dancers' glowing costumes and various floating lights. The choreography defines how we understand the spatial relationship between each object.


Long-Exposure Photography: Traffic



This photograph by Martin Gommel is a good example of light taking on a very particular spatial quality. Ironically we never see the car or headlights, but only the light itself is captured on film. Through the motion of the light we're able to understand the source, and the spatial behavior of the source. It reminds me a little of my glow light project because in both cases, movement of the source itself is important and gives us a spatial understanding we could not obtain without the moving light.


Glowing Jellyfish

Glowing Jellyfish from Adam Sowka on Vimeo

I'm interested in biomimicry, and while that doesn't apply directly to my project, various aspects of the glowing jellyfish do, and it's always productive to learn by observing nature. Again, our spatial understanding of the jellyfish and the movement of the jellyfish is largely augmented by them emitting light from their bodies. The jellyfish also embody a fluidity of motion which is not commonly associated with light, which would be a pleasant challenge to incorporate into future projects.


Long-Exposure Photography: Sparkler



This long-exposure shot by Eric Constantineau takes on a very different feel because of the swirling sparkler light that circulates through the graveyard. I see this as a precedent because both projects have a strong component of time. Even though my glow project involves experiencing a slow change over time and Constantineau's photograph collapses a length of time into a single image, both use visual media that incorporates evolution over time.

*edit* At Eric Constantineau's request, here is a link to his website: http://www.ericconstantineau.com/


Light Painting



Jan Wöllert and Jörg Miedza are two artists that practice "light painting" or "light drawing." They use long-exposure photography in dark settings with moving light sources to create surreal effects. In many ways it's a similar approach to the photograph above, where light takes on a more substantial quality, and we tend to focus on the light itself as the subject instead of using the light to highlight a subject. The artists are able to capture a phenomenon that is normally too fast for us to perceive in real-time.

(Titles of each section are also links to further information.)