James Clar Light Sculptures

James Clar’s work is an analysis and observation on the affects of media and technology on our perception of culture, nationality, and identity. His interest is in new technology and production processes, using them as a medium, while analyzing and critiquing their modifying affects on human behavior.

Technology allows for new forms of communication; however every system enhances certain types of communication while limiting and simplifying others. It’s these modulated effects and alterations to our perception that has become thematic focus to his works, whether dealing with socio-political issues or inward personal emotions.

Above: Thermal Energy – An array of lights intersect through a fence at an angle, with the colors visualizing hot air rising and cold air sinking. This work visualizes what is invisible, air, and shows it passing through a fence, letting the viewer think about air as a substance that fills all open spaces and travels through fences, borders, etc.

Plotted Coordinates – A piece that references the spatial information of three dimensional objects. The steel beams create a grid XYZ reference point in which a jagged line move through ( Up, Down, Left and Right ) spatially plotting coordinates to create a three dimensional form. The lights are filtered to run through the spectrum of colors, alluding to the various colors an object might be.

Two Times One Sun – A visualization of the sun from two different perspectives on earth. One showing the sky with the sun setting and the other showing the sky with the sun rising. This work compresses the timezones between the two perspectives and focuses in on a single object viewable from both places; the sun.

One minute dreamstate (1.40 am) – A brainwave sensor was used to record the artist’s brain activity during one night of sleep. At 1:40am REM occured, his brainwave activity increased, and he entered dreamstate. One minute of brainwave data from the transition into dream sleep is selected and mapped onto light filters. These lights are then arranged into a large circle which represents the face of a clock, with the red lines representing the time. A portrait of the artist entering a creative, subconscious state.

Focus – Fluorescent lights are mounted horizontally on the wall. Within the lines of light the word “Focus” is written. Using cursive writing, the line goes from crisp to blurry as the word goes from direct light to indirect light. This causes the lettering to go in and out of focus.

THE END – Direct and in-direct light are controlled using linear fluorescent lights. Facing the viewer the word “THE” appears in blue. While the word “END” is shown reflecting off the back wall behind the lights. A play on media generated hype and like the end credits of a film; this piece shows the end is coming.

NASDAQ Recursive Loop – NASDAQ Recursive Loop maps NASDAQ data from October 2007 till February 2011 onto a large circle of light. The higher the stock value the further from the center the line of light is shown. Starting from the top and going clockwise; the line shows the recession hitting around 2008 and slowly recovering, until Feb 2011 when the value is the same as before the crash in Oct 2007.

Cubic Zirconia – Cubic Zirconia creates random lines of light within an abstract structure. The lines of light are colored to represent the prismatic effect of light as it passes through artificial diamonds (cubic zircon).

 Lover’s Quarrel

Got Recession – “Got Recession” is the artist’s version of architecture in Dubai at the height of the economic boom, and then forwarded a few months to the global recession, leaving a half-finished architecture skeleton. Scaffolding still surrounds the building and at night the lighting glows internally. Similar to many projects put on hold in Dubai, the lights were kept on at night, until the project was finally cancelled and the lights went off.

Info and images © James Clar

James Clar Light Sculptures