Why James Turrell is a genius Lighting Designer and how he inspired Drake's Hotline Bling video!

Remember Drake's Hotline Bling video? Yep, that was "inspired" by James Turrell's installations. Ever wondered what James Turrell had to say about that?

High Snobiety reported, in a blog post by James' lawyer, James Turrell provided the following statement,

I wanted to touch on two particular installations that fascinate me to no extent.

If you dont know who James Turrell is (how?), these works of art will give you a fair understanding of the genius that he is. Although, you should know that there is a sea of his work and makes for some great content to get past that creative block you've been experiencing.

BRIDGET'S BARDO (2009)

THE GANZFELD EFFECT

This one of the installations from a series of installations that create a similar experience called the Ganzfeld Effect. Ganzfeld is a German word to describe the phenomenon of the total loss of depth perception similar to that in a white out.

Essentially, the idea here is to starve your senses of any signals of distance, depth and shapes forcing the brain to create its own reality by amplifying the senses and mistaking flushes of colors and patterns as distinction points such as walls, portals (you read that right) and boundaries within a space.

He doesn't use colors to wash/fill up the objects,but rather, he uses them to create the illusion of objects.

Simply speaking, if you think you see a wall, dont try to lean against it. A guide at one of the James Turrell exhibitions warned Erin Langhner (The Offing Mag)-

"....make sure not to wander past me," he called out. "An alarm will go off, because where I’m standing might look like a wall, but there’s actually a six-foot drop just past here."

Trust me, you dont want to be the one falling while everyone's trying trip out.

AFRUM 1 - WHITE (1966)

DICHOTOMOUS PERCEPTUAL DECISIONS

As intimidating as 'dichotomous perceptual decisions' sounds, simply put, it is used to describe the phenomenon where our brain perceives what it sees as one thing as opposed to what it actually is.

In this early installation, what appears to be a white cube floating mid air and attached to the corner at the same time is in fact a projection of two planar light surfaces from across a dimly lit room on to the two perpendicular faces of the wall.

Your brain is able to perceive it as either one thing or the other, and it can’t decide between the two. Sometimes it seems like a concave corner, while other times the light seems to be a solid coming out of the wall.

Depending on the position in the room, one half of the cube might appear to be wider than the other as a result of the cube revealing itself in perspective. However, as you advance towards the cube, eventually, the brain strengthens its interpretation of the it being a 2D light projection on the wall rather than a 3D cube object floating in space.

****SPOILER ALERT (duh...) - IT IS NOT A FLOATING CUBE. IT IS A 2D PROJECTION.

JAMES TURRELL - WORK

MORE JAMES TURRELL - SEMI GANZFELD/GUGGENHEIM INSTALLATION

In other news...

Did you know that Erco lighting had its own brand of honey? Since 2017, Erco has has been maintaining about five colonies of Buckfast bees (approx. 200,000) bees as a part of their sustainability mission.

Here's what Erco had to say about it-

"This is an active contribution to nature conservation and against bee mortality. After all, bees are an indispensable part of our ecosystem, and their pollination services ensure the survival of plants, animals and humans."

So you're not only saving the world but also have access to the best kind of honey at all times. That's pretty cool Erco!!

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