Adam Synnott with Jason Lam “Light Interruped”
Serial Space, Chippendale from the 6-9th of August
It’s always going to be awkward when you turn up to an exhibition opening by yourself. Maybe because art appreciators move in herds, or maybe because one free wine isn’t enough, and two is bordering on scab. Luckily for me, the object of attention for the night was both interactive and largely pre-occupying – enough so, that whilst I pretended I was waiting for ‘my friend to come back from the bathroom’, I was encourgaed to reawaken my often-too-dormant love for new media art and technologies.
This was one of those nights that ripens like good one, where lovers and non-art lovers alike, can both similarly appreciate the going ons of the artworks.
A collaborative work by artists Adam Synnott and Jason Lam, Light Interrupted utilises new-media technologies to visually and aurally map audience participation by means of software programming, sound and visual design and LEDs.
On first impression, the work seemed dwarfed by the gallery space (even considering its size) and I was left wondering about the placing of the work in the farther corner of the room. Though not was I to know, that as the night grew, so would a heavy crowd of onlookers, all observing from this vantage point when not personally interacting with the work.
The screen projection of the piece, responded to the pressure and positioning of one’s touch, in order to release sharp beams of light and colour depending on where abouts on the plane the touch was orientated. Even though when I attended there where LED complications, and one of the software applications was down altogether, it didn’t hinder the experience in anyway (for me, at least). Ten stars for the touch screen!
The best part about the work was that more than one person could be involved at any time, which led to various light/sound battles and much amusing speculation as to who was making what and how. In a space of about five minutes I overheard such gold as, “It does make you feel all mythical or something”, as well as a reference to X-Men. The X-Men part I didn’t get so much, but I’m sure you can imagine what they be getting at. There certainly were some unsual visual anomolies that arose from certain gifted individuals – the lady next to me kept conjuring what she called “the jellyfish”, whilst critising her husband of not having a soul as he could, rather unfortunately, conjure nothing. Poor bugger, and he thought he had cold hands.
One of the artists spoke of oscillating Sine Waves as the basis for the application programming and it was nice to actually see what was going on on the technical side of things. The rear of projection screen was set up to expose the mirror, laptop and projection gadgets, whilst to one side of the gallery there were two additional laptops illustrating the software in action. Despite this, it was still mostly a mystery to me.
If you caught the exhibition in the days that followed, you might have been lucky enough to catch the second application at full swing (the artist had promised it was a temporary glitch only). Unfortunately for me however, I didn’t make it back to catch this second joy, though it’s still one experience I’m sure I won’t be forgetting any time too soon.
You will love this if: you enjoy playing with bright shinny things.
You will hate this if: you’re epileptic.
Light Interuptted ran from the 6th-9th August at Serial Space (33 Wellington St, Chippendale)
