“Saturated Luminous Radiation” by David Sokolsky

 

I have attempted to decode and celebrate one of the most intangible things known to mankind; light. This is being done metaphorically of course, the science is still very elemental. Without light life would not exist, it is the basis of everything. I use various processes to manipulate this incredible energy, bending, refracting, reflecting, adding color, subtracting color, and time.

What if we could control light in ways that we currently cannot imagine? To direct it and di-sect it and customize it to do new and impossible tasks? I am composing a “symphony of saturated light” as Mozart and Beethoven have done with sound by creating what we now call classical music. The limitations are the instruments being used as opposed to light or illumination which is boundless and infinite. These images serve as the “sheet music” for the luminous visual compositions that may be called “illuminated sheet music” or “illumusic”. 

In optics, different color electromagnetic radiation spectrums do have varying effects on humans and other living things. I am exploring the different intensities and wavelengths of the light spectrum so we can visualize what we can already see and what cannot see into an imagined form within the color spectrum.

The images are created with a digital camera but are not manipulated with photoshop to make them possible. These images are more or less straight forward photographic depictions of glass constructions. Colors, shapes, and the direction of the light become instrumental in the creation of the images. Lasers will be introduced at a later time. There are environmental locations subtly incorporated into the images but often times there is nothing else but a studio environment that voids any sense of place. The purposeful violent movements of the camera made and lack of camera focus mostly voids any discernible sense of place. These are alien landscapes exploiting the digital camera in the way that it records an image differently than a film camera does.

Every image made was unique and a derivative of the actual glass structured objects. Images became organically enhanced by its unlimited color palette that resulted from reflections and refractions of light. The color palette was also accomplished by the transparency of the colored glass overlapping in many multiples. The process and subject matter was not as important as the incorporation of graphic shapes, patterns, and mostly bold colors. Color interaction within the images were of considerable concern. Primary color use, color theory, and complimentary colors, were all considered when constructing the glass structures to be photographed.

The color glass constructions or structures at first were crude and most were not very large but with more experimentation they became more complex and some were created on progressively larger scale.

 

The color saturated images are displayed face mounted with 1/4 inch acrylic and completes the cycle of their creation.