LUXLUMIN - Foreword

 

“Come to the light”, someone said, once. I am not sure who or exactly what the context was but it was surely biblical and for the most part a lie. Notions of light and patriarchal voices bursting from bushes and cinema screens have always held us in some kind of half-step dance with the truth. Culturally we’ve got a thing for light: the non-descript tunnel with a light at the end – you know the one - somewhere I would presume beneath a mountain, aboard a stagecoach, whips cracking, gun powder burning the nostrils, packing a twin-stick of dynamite. Poor old Gatsby staring across the water at the incessant pulse of the green light in the fog. Then of course there’s the very poetic image of the light on the hill, stirring the passion of the faithful, a comforting glow of enduring strength for the weary masses. And then there’s the weary stockman rounding the bend to see the lamp in the window and the promise of a quart of whiskey on the hearth. Good times.

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As an ex-addict however I always associate the notion of light with the intimate act of smoking. Damn nothin’ more provocative than seeing the silver screen burn up with a flame in the cup of the hand of a Depp, a Mitchum, a Hepburn or a DeNiro. But of course that’s just a hangover from the 20th Century when light  was  electrified  and  image making was a chemical reaction - that science meets art thing again.

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It’s screen time folks, it’s time to get hip to a brand new beat. Jack up the lumens and plug in to this new convergence of cityscape with screen art. Snap it, tag it, post it. Light begets light. There are some familiar digital provocateurs here for sure – Ashley, Posse, Rossetti and that old sage Keating – but they are asking something new of the public space. Apart from the insects how do these bulbs of luminescence attract our attention layering new meaning upon this northern city? How as a diverse complex citizenry of interwoven identities do we respond to this luminescent representation?

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Come to the light and feel the burn.

 

Mitch Goodwin

www.mitchgoodwin.com