Linda Jasmin Mayer l Lightways

A light on the edge of the path projects, and its radiance is directed at an object or a building. Sometimes the illuminated object is in the field of view of the passersby, sometimes it is not. Some of them stop with surprise, some of them just go on, some of them turn around, they’re irritated, is the light broken? Someone even asked if it was haunted.

In Refshaleøen in Copenhagen, Linda Jasmin Mayer has developed a light installation for ewoLAB in 2015 that fits in with the surroundings in a restrained manner. It works with the illumination of the path and for the mooring of ships. The area of the former shipyard is rough: old factory buildings, manufacturing halls, houses, some unused, some inhabited by the local creative spirits. The artistic intervention is subtle and not obviously to everybody. That raises the questions: how attentively do we follow our path? How much do we allow ourselves to be “distracted”? How high or low is our threshold of attention? Those who pause and look around themselves quickly notice that the usual lighting of the path was intruded upon here.

The artist works with the presence and absence of light. Today, new technologies make it possible for lights to only be in operation when they are needed, and thus, for example, if cars or pedestrians pass by. Here, it is the other way around: a motion sensor turns off the light for a short time.

With her work “Lightways”, Linda Jasmin Mayer skillfully moves along a border. She allows her work to also remain unrecognized. The artist uses light to direct our attention to objects of the past that are located within the area. If the installation is observed from the distance, then the feeling arises that one is looking at a stage set. Within that context, the choreography of each scene is a little bit different. What is created is a playful, ephemeral staging of light in surroundings of a past technical greatness.

The installation was implemented with LED spotlights from ewo (models P160 and P200). The various radiating characteristics of the lens optics (tightly or loosely bundled) make possible a different emphasis of the objects. As lighting colors, warm white (3,000 K) and cool white (6,000 K) were used. With the illumination of the pole, the lighting color varies between these two values.

The luminaires communicate with each other by means of a radio network. Through the use of remote servicing, functions can be defined and modified and the system can be monitored in real time. The interaction is triggered by means of motion sensors. For the project, ewo carried out individual software programming that was supplemented by scene programming as effect lighting of the pole. A gateway functions as the central interface which establishes the communications with the control software over the GSM cellphone network.

The challenge consisted of making the smallest possible intrusion in the existing structure but nevertheless achieving a lasting effect. All of the data through the course of the duration of the project are recorded and can be correspondingly evaluated.