Popular Lighting Guerrilla Festival will this year for the first time involve on the premises of Mala galerija Banke Slovenije. Thematically, the festival this year is inspired by reality, which is a deceptive and elusive phenomenon, a construct that is based on our perception, which, however, can be manipulated. Tilen Sepič’s exhibition Cosmic Rain is tied to the thematic framework of reality. It visualises this natural phenomenon in the abstract and minimalist idiom of a sound and light installation. The distinctly material representation of cosmic particles in the form of light and sound impulses affords the viewer a sensory experience of physical and cosmic events, which are all around us but inaccessible to our senses. In this way, Cosmic Rain links itself to the paradoxical nature of reality as the conceptual framework of the festival.
The sound and light installation is composed of a taught network of wires that link together devices to detect cosmic rays, put together by means of lighting or kinetic elements. The flashes of light and movement of electromagnets, which generate sound, depend on signals captured from muon detectors, which the artist made using open code template from the Cosmic Watch (MIT) project. Muons are particles not visible to the naked eye that form on Earth in the upper layers of the atmosphere when it is hit by cosmic rays, which are high-energy particles that originate from the depths of the universe. These are in fact basic particles with positive and negative electric charges and with an exceptionally short decay time. The particles can shoot through any kind of matter, and are only stopped by the thickness of our planet. The spatial installation is set up through an abstract and minimalist idiom that seeks to visualise this invisible natural phenomenon. In this way, it affords the viewer a sensory experience of physical and cosmic events, which are all around us but inaccessible to our senses.
Tilen Sepič is a multidisciplinary designer and intermedia artist. He works in the fields of product design, lighting design, interactive studio photography, designing experiences and interactive installations based on light and sound. He often works with the Lighting Guerrilla Festival, for which in recent years he has created a range of original projects (Tilt, Light Oscillator, Clouds and more), which have been hosted at several partner festivals abroad, while he also works as an occasional mentor for the Lighting Guerrilla Laboratory.
Author: Tilen Šepič
Electronics and programming: Luka Frelih, Gregor Krpic, Staš Vrenko, Brane Ždralo
Production: Forum Ljubljana, Strip Core, Ljudmila / osmo/za
MGBS Curator: Vladimir Vidmar
Project developed in the framework of konS – Platform for modern research art
