It’s a living thing
THERE ARE certain more arcane areas of lighting, particularly alternative future sources, that merit revisiting once in a while to see how things are going. One area used to be OLEDs, for instance, but after flirting with its potential as an ambient lighting source that’s rather found its own niche in screen technology. Another is bioluminescence, especially as a potential source for urban lighting.
It pops up on to the radar every now and then because someone has done something with it – perhaps attracted media attention with talk of glowing mushrooms, or persuaded a town council to have an experimental scheme (Rambouillet – more on that later) or held small exhibitions and events to show the possibilities and aspirations (Daan Roosegaarde’s Glowing Nature programme, FX March/April 24). But then things go quiet again.
The impression is that there is perennially some general investigation going on in this area but we haven’t reached a point where it is a viable and realisable large-scale proposition. Which is a shame because it would have a lot of benefits: there are environmental advantages because, deriving from natural organisms, bioluminescent light sources don’t need electrical power, thereby reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. They would also minimise light pollution, as they create only a naturally soft and diffuse glow. The sources are also self-replenishing, under the right conditions, offering a continual cycle of illumination without depleting resources.
But these are living organisms, which poses a number of challenges, not least ethical. They need to be kept in optimum conditions: luminescent algae, for example, need the right temperature, nutrient balance and oxygen levels. As well as being complicated, that can itself involve intensive use of resources.
Another issue is that light output not only has to be consistent and long-lasting but bright enough for certain purposes. In other words, what is an advantage where light pollution is concerned could be a problem for particular applications.
It is therefore perhaps inevitable that a lot of aspiring ventures bite the dust. One of the more hopeful ones in recent years was French company Glowee, which worked with the small town of Rambouillet, around 50km south-west of Paris. Rambouillet city hall signed a partnership with Glowee, investing £83,300 to turn the town into ‘a full-scale bioluminescence laboratory’.
ERDF, a largely state-run company that manages France’s electricity grid, was also among Glowee’s backers, the European Commission provided £1.4m funding, and France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) also gave technical support.
The first installation, a series of cylindrical tubes containing bioluminescent bacteria, soothed post-jab patients in a Covid-19 vaccination centre with their soft blue glow. The source in this case was a marine bacterium called Aliivibrio fischeri, housed in tubes of saltwater, creating a luminous aquarium. There were plans for further exterior installations and signage applications, some of which materialised. Sadly, Glowee was declared bankrupt in 2023.
Inevitably, as the following items demonstrate, when the subject does occasionally rear its head it tends to be a kickstarter project, or part of a research study, or a novelty use designed to grab publicity. Whatever the reason, it is confirmation that people have by no means given up on the idea.
Bioluminescence is light produced by a chemical reaction within a living organism. It is a type of chemiluminescence, or the chemical reaction where light is produced. (Bioluminescence is chemiluminescence that takes place inside a living organism.)
Most bioluminescent organisms are found in the ocean and include fish, bacteria and jellyfish. Some bioluminescent organisms, including fireflies and fungi, are found on land. There are almost no bioluminescent organisms native to freshwater habitats
The chemical reaction that results in bioluminescence needs two unique chemicals: luciferin and either luciferase or photoprotein. Luciferin is the compound that actually produces light. The bioluminescent colour (yellow in fireflies, greenish in lanternfish) is a result of the arrangement of luciferin molecules.
Some bioluminescent organisms, such as dinoflagellates – a type of plankton – synthesise luciferin independently. These are the tiny marine organisms that can sometimes be seen sparkling on the surface of the sea.
Most bioluminescent reactions involve luciferin and luciferase, but some involve a chemical called a photoprotein. Photoproteins combine with luciferins and oxygen, but need another agent, often an ion of the element calcium, to produce light.
Photoproteins were only recently identified, and scientists are still studying their unusual chemical properties. Photoproteins were first studied in bioluminescent crystal jellyfish, Aequorea victoria, found off the west coast of North America.
Source: National Geographic (Education)
BIOLUMINESCENT FLOWER PARLOUR
BOMPASS AND PARR/AGLAÉ
Bioluminescence is right up Bompass and Parr’s street. The multisensory experience design studio likes ‘to deliver emotionally compelling experiences to a wide variety of audiences’.
Held last autumn in Canary Wharf, the Bioluminescent Flower Parlour was a pop-up affair featuring glow-in-the-dark flowers. The floral displays absorb a ‘fluorescent’, nutritive serum (presumably when they are watered) developed by the glowing plant concept company Aglaé. The luminescent effect is enhanced by UV lighting. The company is coy about exact details, though its name would perhaps indicate the use of algae. However, the use of UV suggests fluorescent or possibly phosphorescent rather than bioluminescent techniques. However it is achieved, according to the company it involves no genetic modification and is not harmful to the environment.
The idea was spawned when founder Sophie Hombert wrote a thesis on the domestication of plants and subsequently partnered with research laboratories to develop the serum. The company’s two main activities are events and research.
Aglaé offers cut flowers (for transient events as the effect lasts as long as the flowers), green plants with roots and, actually with real potential for interiors, stabilised (‘mummified’) plants, which apparently have a lifetime of three to five years. These can be used for plant walls, planters, reception furniture or even green ceilings. Aglaé has a prestigious portfolio with Disney, Dom Perignon and Chanel among its clients.
It may be on a different path but it is on the same page as the likes of Roosegaard (mentioned on the previous page). It says its ‘long-term goal is to design soft, living, electricity-free lighting solutions. Together, let’s imagine a more sustainable future where our parks and gardens will be lit by the glow of trees.’ www.design-aglae.com
LUCID LIFE
CHRIS BELLAMY
Chris Bellamy is a biodesigner and engineer who studied engineering at the University of Cambridge. Starting at Jaguar Land Rover (helping to develop its first electric vehicle, the Jaguar I-Pace), he then moved to developing customisable and recyclable shoes. His research now is focused on how living materials can be used in our everyday lives, ‘co-evolving traditional knowledge with the latest scientific research’.
After a bio-prospecting trip to French Polynesia in search of novel microorganisms, Bellamy was inspired by the indigenous community’s connection to nature, and wanted to see how design could bring these two worlds together. The result was Lucid Life, or ‘Marama Ora’ in Tahitian, based on a living material that emits light in response to touch.
Developed with the support of the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical discovery, the material uses bioluminescent algae, like those that live symbiotically with corals. The microorganisms are encapsulated in a way that enables them to live, sequester carbon, and emit light for more than six months. They need only sunlight in return.
In collaboration with three different Polynesian artisans, Bellamy co-created a series of artefacts using the bioluminescent material: a drum, a swimsuit and a necklace, ‘which demonstrate how living materials can reconnect us to nature, and how biotechnology can move beyond the laboratory’. www.chris@biocrafted.com
Immerse Yourself
THERE HAS been a sudden rash of venues around the world offering ‘immersive’ artistic experiences using techniques such as 360° projection and projection mapping. While they appear to be serving up something spectacular, mind-bending and mindful (from limited experience, bean bags and deck chairs seem de rigueur in the immersive bit), it’s fair to say that critical appraisal has often been tepid if not downright sceptical.
Peter Conrad, writing in The Guardian, was relatively benign: ‘The immersion promised by an array of art exhibitions throughout London is also a harmless metaphor: at worst, you are inundated by light.’
Dead artists from Munch to Monet and Khalo to Klimt have been subjected to the 3D light and colour projection treatment. Conrad visited Frameless at Marble Arch, which parcels up a whole raft of artists under different themes in its four galleries.
‘A million lumens bombard you with more than 479 million pixels, while 158 speakers saturate you with music; the effect is a soft psychedelia, which weakens the upright demeanour of Georges Seurat’s picnickers beside the Seine and entices you to join the sinners who enjoy kinkier pleasures in Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights,’ wrote Conrad in his Guardian article.
Alex Fleming-Brown on Vice is rather more vituperative. His piece on the subject is titled ‘Immersive Art Exhibitions Are Everywhere and They’re Awful’, which is a bit of a giveaway.
‘”Immersive art” is the latest lazy lovechild of TikTok and enterprising warehouse landlords,’ writes Fleming-Brown. ‘Ready your Oculus headsets, earplugs and gas masks or simply sit on your arse and read – I’ve been to London’s immersive art exhibitions, so you don’t have to.’
Having visited Spitalfields Van Gogh London Exhibit: The Immersive Experience, I would say that having to begin by crossing the immersive experience (supposedly the finale of the whole thing) in order to access the loo through a door in one of the projections rather took the gilt off the gingerbread. Warehouse vibe indeed.
Hockney, of course, is the only live artist to have some say in the matter with the Lightroom installation in London’s Coal Drops Yard, perhaps more successful as a result – and for having his own commentary. However, here is not the place to fully explore the merits or otherwise of this alternative way of presenting old and new masters, or whether these enterprises are beneficial and educational, or downdumbing.
There is, though, an important distinction between what are digitised three-dimensional projections of original two-dimensional paintings, and light art that is created to be immersive and experiential – where the medium is the message. There is a possibility of muddying the waters between the gimmicky and the genuine artistic exploration of digital techniques – those artists using light, colour and reflectivity, plus a whole panoply of digital techniques, to create a unique, immersive, sometimes interactive experience.
There is also non-digital art, which creates an immersive effect with the use of just light and reflectivity, with mirrors (Yayoi Kusama, overleaf) or the semi-translucency of water jets (Olafur Eliasson), or the emitted light and colour of the sources themselves (the 1960s/70s Light and Space movement, Carlos Cruz-Diez and his Chromosaturation series).
There are also multi-disciplinary companies that create installations for corporate environments, exhibitions and so on (Jason Bruges Studio and United Visual Artists, for example). Immersive-Me, which has a dazzling array of services from projection mapping to projection domes, offers to create ‘artistic light installations at festivals’. Dominic Harris, meanwhile, distinguishes between the installations he creates as an artist (he is represented by the Halcyon Gallery) and those carried out for clients through Cinimod, the company he founded in 2007.
So the ‘immersive experience’ is something of a catch-all, ranging from the cor blimey to the sublime, from the second rate to the spectacular.
At the cutting edge of the digital sphere is teamLab, which continues to bring art and technology together to create breathtaking installations in its home country and internationally. At the traditional end is the aforementioned Yayoi Kusama, whose new installation continues six decades of creating magical, immersive effects simply with light and mirrors.
TEAMLAB
Tokyo-based teamLab, founded in 2001, is at the forefront of the digital immersive field. An interdisciplinary creative group that brings together artists, programmers, engineers, computer graphics animators, mathematicians, architects, web and print graphic designers and editors, they refer to themselves as ‘ultra-technologists’ bringing together art, science, technology and creativity.
Its Planets exhibition in Tokyo has set the Guinness World Record for the world’s most visited museum dedicated to a single group or artist. Between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024, teamLab Planets welcomed more than 2.5 million visitors. This marks the second time a teamLab museum has set a Guinness World Record, following the 2019 record by teamLab’s Borderless, also in Tokyo. Last year, Borderless also opened as a permanent exhibition in Jeddah.
One of its most ambitious projects, scheduled for opening in 2025, is teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi – a 17,000m2 multisensory art experience featuring original and constantly transforming artistic installations unique to Abu Dhabi. It will sit alongside the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim in the Saadiyat Cultural District.
Writing for the Financial Times following a visit to Planets, Niki Blasina described teamLab’s work as ‘a delight, a mind-boggling and mesmerising marriage of visual and installation art with sensation — and a fascinating example of how technology can… influence our real-world experiences. It’s the art of tomorrow’. www.teamlab.art
MY HEART IS FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH SPARKLING LIGHT (2024)
YAYOI KUSAMA
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, renowned for her polka dots and pumpkins, is also known worldwide for her Infinity Mirror Rooms. She introduced her first mirrored environments in the 1960s, experimenting with light and reflection to dissolve spatial boundaries.
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne has unveiled a world-premiere infinity room as part of its major retrospective of the artist, which opened in December. Titled My Heart is Filled to the Brim with Sparkling Light (2024), Kusama invites the audience ‘to immerse themselves in an environment where light and reflection converge’. Points of light are orchestrated to generate a rhythmic interplay of brightness and shadow, encouraging viewers ‘to reflect on their place within an endless cosmos’.
Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life was one of Kusama’s largest installations to date when it featured at her 2012 retrospective at Tate Modern. It was shown alongside Chandelier of Grief, a room that created the illusion of a boundless universe of rotating crystal chandeliers.
The newest installation is part of an exhibition that spans Kusama’s eight-decade career, showcasing 200 works, including ten immersive installations, including Dots Obsession, an installation of massive inflated spheres, featuring her trademark colourful, polka-dotted structures. www.ngv.vic.gov.au
