Lighting Design and the Solo Artist

[Ken Coker]

A lighting designer is only truly an artist when he/she forsakes collaborative and interpretative practice and works as a solo artist - for example James Turrell. (http://www.conversations.org/99-1-turrell.htm).

 

Discuss using all six sides of the paper...............

 

Cheers

 

Ken

[TeeJay]

You're taking the stance that an artist is only so if working solo and that a group of artists collaborating is something else.

 

in any case, surely the artist is aiming for an interpretative stance from those who come to witness the finished piece, (or the work in progress). Part of art is the response surely?

 

The opening rebuttal ... :blink:

[Guest lightnix]

And here is the link for your surfing pleasure :(

 

Here's another link to some more links to his work, including the classic Afrum I (1967), the er... arch-shaped Lunette (1974) and the ummm... blue, rectangular Night Passage (1987)

 

I wonder how long it took him to think those up :)

 

A lighting designer is only truly an artist when he/she forsakes collaborative and interpretative practice and works as a solo artist - for example James Turrell.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Whatever :) So LDs aren't really artists? Fine - I can handle that. Much of the design work I did (especially on the corporate front) involved making it look like the graphic. Most of the rest was a collaboration between the client, producer, set designer and myself. Never once did I have the nerve to apply the word "art" to what I did. "Creative"? yes; "skilled"? possibly; "art"? no.

 

Anyway, I bet Mr. Turrell doesn't really work alone. I bet he doesn't cable it all up and connect it to the mains himself. If he does, can we see the test certificates please? That looks like an illegal installation to me :o

 

"Manipulating light as a sculptor would mold clay, James Turrell creates works that amplify perception... Turrell’s light works—one cannot call these shimmering events â€objects“ or â€images“—give form to perception... what seems to be a lustrous, suspended cube is actually the conjunction of two flat panels of projected light; a rectangle of radiant color hovering in front of a wall is really a deep, illuminated depression in the space; a velvety black square on the ceiling is, in reality, a portal to the night sky. With such effects, Turrell hopes to coax the viewer into a state of self-reflexivity in which one can see oneself seeing.

:blink: :wub:

I'm sorry, but why do the words "money", "old", "rope", "emperor's", "new" and "clothes" spring to mind as I read that and look through his "catalogue"? Is it just me?

 

We are definitely at the wrong end of the business, chaps. I'm going out tomorrow to buy myself a big shirt, a cape and a floppy hat. I'm going to grow my beard reeeeeaaaaallllllly long, join a non-mainstream religion for a few months, then fall out with it, denouncing it as "philosophically unsound" without saying why, because it's obvious. I'm going to spend at least thirty seconds in silent contemplation before answering any question (including "do you take sugar?"), looking suspiciously at the questioner out of the corner of my eye while doing so. Then I'm going to focus a Patt 23 at the floor, hard edged, colour it in 116, give the "work" a mysterious-sounding name and then I'm going to...

 

...laugh all the way to the bank.

 

"Light shining on the screen? No, mate - it's a cross-dimensional, multi-planar photonic pseudo-membrane which will enable the entire audience to glimpse all of their hypocrises at once in a neuro-plastic ellipse. Isn't it obvious?"

 

"Unlit bit in the centre of the stage? That's the abyss at the centre of all our lives, into which every man, woman and child must ultimately fall, through either death, insanity or just plain ennui and the mindless tedium of everyday existence, magnified a thousand fold by Sky TV."

 

"Well it might only be an AGM to you, but there's actually a lot more going on than that. Dear me."

 

"Lighting Designer? That's "Photonic Melder" to you. Did you get my invoice, by the way?"

[Just Some Bloke]

In the original piece mentioned in Ken's original post, Mr Turrell also says:

 

There are some very interesting experiments that were done several years ago. They show that light is aware that we are looking.

 

Sounds a bit like "if a tree falls in the forest..." to me!

 

I tried reading the whole interview but found my attention wandering from time to time. I kept thinking "have you ever actually tried lighting something rather than just playing with light itself? It's actually quite interesting."

 

I also feel that working as a solo artist is easy peasy lemon squeezy. Interpreting what a director asks for, then giving him/her more than they thought possible - that's the hard bit, and, indeed, the bit that has the most job satisfaction for me. I remember the director who said, of an in-the-round production, "I want it all lit in white top light with not many cues". I created something using angles and colours which I felt still kept the feel he was after. It had 120 cues and he loved it. His vision, my interpretation. Between us we created artistry. When that happens it's so much better than working on ones own.

 

 

(Don't look now, but I just looked up at the flourescent tube in my office and I swear it knew)

JSB

[Brian]

A lighting designer is only truly an artist when he/she forsakes collaborative and interpretative practice and works as a solo artist - for example James Turrell. (http://www.conversations.org/99-1-turrell.htm).

There is an argument that the 'audience' is as much a part of the artistic process as the 'artist'. This renders the whole idea of the solo artist as meaningless; you cannot have art which only involves one person.

[IainQuinn]

Post removed by poster.

 

The views expressed in this post are my own and are not representative of my employer.

 

Iain

[Just Some Bloke]

(snip)

  You are asking the Lighting Designer to operate as a completely separate entity than the rest of the design team.  (snip)

 

To be fair, Iain, it wasn't Ken who was saying this but James Turrell. Ken was merely quoting; and perhaps he was doing so because he specifically doesn't agree with the quote himself!

 

Mr Turrell, you'll find, has an idea of lighting design which entails lighting an entire hotel only with the light coming from televisions. Each floor has the TVs tuned to different channels (e.g. one floor sport, another arts, another current affairs) so that the light is constantly changing and the colour of light produced is different depending on which floor you are on. I can understand him wanting to work on this entirely on his own as collaborating may involve compromises in which neither party is truly happy. Personally, I always find that someone else's ideas, if handled correctly, can only improve one's own thoughts, mostly because there will always be something that adds to your initial concept, but even if it's only by reinforcing the feeling that you are right and they are wrong which would add strength to one's own commitment!

 

You are absolutely right that in 99% of theatrical works the LD has to work as part of a team of designers (in which I include the director) and cannot work alone, but Mr T is saying that this can never acheive perfection, involving compromises as it does, and that TVs in hotels can.

 

Personally, give me collaboration every day as long as everyone adds to the product and no-one tries to take away from it. Trouble is, one person's adding is another's taking away! It's not black and white!

 

JSB