ERNESTO KLAR
LUZES RELACIONAIS
2010
Relational Lights is an interactive installation that explores the ways in which the individual and expressive human subject occupies a shifting and variable space in relation to others. The installation uses light, sound, haze, and a custom-software system to create a morphing, three-dimensional light-space in which spectators actively participate, manipulating it with their presence and movements. The work functions as a living organism with or without the presence and interactions of spectators. When viewers step outside the projected light-space, the system begins its own dialogue with space by means of extruding and morphing sequences of geometric light forms. And when viewers penetrate and interact with the projected lightspace, a collective and participatory expression of space unfolds. Relational Lights amplifies the three-dimensional fabric of space by making it visible, audible, and tangible to participants. The resulting aesthetic experience encourages an unending relational process of shaping space among participants.
Ernesto Klar created Relational Lights as a tribute to the work and aesthetic inquiry of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920-1988.) Relational Lights emphasizes the spectator's relationship with what Lygia Clark called the "expressional-organic" character of space, and expands on her conception of the "organic line." The latter is the root of Lygia Clark's progressive interest in and inclusion of the viewing subject within the work of art. Relational Lights takes examples of the "organic line" in Lygia's oeuvre, such as her Modulated Space maquettes from 1958, and literally extrudes them as interactive planes into threedimensional space. Spectators are able to modulate and penetrate the "organic line" itself while maneuvering within the space. Relational Lights brings about an awareness of the spectator's bodily occupations of space in relation to others.
"Luzes Relacionais" is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts. This project is made possible, in part, with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Additional support has been provided by the generous grants from the Greenwall Foundation and the The Experimental Television Center's Finishing Funds program. The latter is supported by the Electronic Media and Film Program at the New York State Council on the Arts.