Volumetric light sculptures: occupying the space between the apparatus and the image
Creators: name: Harwood, Brendan
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 360503
subject: Digital and electronic media art
classificationCode: 360504
subject: Interactive media

description: The lighting mechanism mediates our visual experience of the world and all visual media within. It is the condition of our vision to expose what surrounds us, both practically and for entertainment. Recent advancements in image display technologies have seen illuminated imagery develop towards a state of ubiquity, from film projectors in cinemas and moving-image billboards, to the domesticated glow of a television screen or computer monitor. As access to these technologies expanded and were taken up as tools in design practices, the display of illuminated imagery deviated from its primary applications, such as the projection of enlarged images over irregular surfaces and installations of unique visual media specific to their location. This practice is broadly known as spatial augmented reality, or SAR (Bimber and Raskar 2005), as it employs light and image display mechanisms to augment our visual reading of a space. A more recent turn in SAR has seen images appear in space as volumes of light, emitted from devices such as digital video projectors, LED arrays and laser modules. These volumetric images bring forth the fact of light as its own object, with its own material qualities and mannerisms.

My practice-led research examines the design of volumetric images projected in space through creating installations that articulate different expressions of SAR. This body of practice has been partitioned into three types of work – situated imagery in specific display spaces, volumetric bodies of light, and material spatial interventions that sculpt the shape of light. This research is built on the work of historians like Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Arthur Zajonc and Sean Cubitt, and intertwines with their theories on the use of light in man-made spaces. My research is resolved in a series of spatial installations that express my theories on a practice approach to designing dimensional objects with volumetric light. These are positioned alongside the works of other designers, including Nathan Lerner, Anthony McCall and Olafur Eliasson. Establishing this research within a burgeoning field of design practice encourages a contemporary approach to working with the visual, intangible medium of light. To better understand the relationship between the technological apparatus, the product of their light and the space they are situated in, I speak through Graham Harman’s ideas on actor-network theory which inform his assertions governing object orientated ontology (OOO). Other thinkers of this recent philosophical field also provide a language for me to talk about varying aggregate assemblies, which coalesce in the form of their own object. Doing so has directed me to address volumetric light sculptures not just by the visual form they take, but the entire system of apparatus and space they are displayed in.

Each of the three areas of my practice “The Fractured Frame”, “Volumetric Light” and “The Material Space” are resolved entry points for practitioners across a broader field of image, technical engineering and architectural design. These serve to facilitate those interested in working with light, and the adjacent areas of consideration that will strengthen an understanding of its use.