This is a project by a third year fine arts student, Jenny Salter, who came to Starscape looking for technical support and components. After discussing the project with her, we were able to offer a student discount on the halogen light sources that she needed. We’ll let her explain the project in her own words:

“The work began with influences from the visually impaired; working with people who have sight impairments brought a new perspective on how simple things in life are taken for granted. Looking specifically at light and how it behaves in both natural and artificial state I wanted to create a body of work that used light as a medium. I began by photographing and experimenting with how light behaves in different situations, manipulating light through the use of a digital camera. Influences at this time came from artists such as Dan Flavin, Peter Freeman and James Turrel whose work uses light directly, Freeman in particular uses light to change a natural public place was seen as unwelcoming and clinical into somewhere inviting. With my own work I chose to take theories from the Sublime and use this to create work that would invoke the feeling of the unknown and sublime using Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant.”

We won’t pretend that we entirely understand all of that, but the project does demonstrate that fibre optics can be used to produce attractive vertical displays.