Joshua (front) and Sam Lewis who are collaborating on an installation at the LUX Light Festival from May 12-21.
Brothers Joshua, 23, and Sam Lewis, 21, are determined to make their contribution to the LUX Light Festival a family collaboration.
The two designers from Massey University’s College of Creative Arts will combine their respective spatial and industrial design prowess to create an installation that physically embodies a body in motion.
The work is called Stretching Light and as Master of Fine Arts candidate Joshua, explains it, aims “ to capture the movement of a body to a moment”.
Using electro luminescent wire that illuminates itself, the five by two metre wide installation held together by numerous bolted steel frames, will show movement as a material in itself.
A section of the installation Stretching Light.
Taking the analogy of the jumps between a slowed down piece of motion picture film that commonly has 25 frames per second, Stretching Light attempts to play with the concept of stretching the space between those frames.
With it being a light festival the choice of wiring was an essential element of the final design.
“Few people are exploring large-scale electro luminescent wiring it’s usually done at hobby level with costuming and things like that,” Sam, who is in his third year of a Bachelor of Design degree, says.
More than 30 light sculptures and interactive installations will bring lightness and brightness to the capital when LUX switches on from May 12-21 with a mix of design, art and technical innovation certain to surprise, delight and captivate audiences after dark.
The festival, being run for the fifth time, is anchored around five distinct precincts featuring a wide range of nationally and internationally recognised artists, designers and architects – including Massey University staff and students.
The Lewis brothers’ installation will be located in The Galleries precinct; an outdoor art gallery with exhibits placed at various locations throughout Wellington’s laneways.
While it is their first time collaborating on LUX together, they have a background working with installations, - Joshua on live projection performances and Sam on a previous LUX project.
“I guess it’s like we’re filling in the gaps, we have a lot of skills that cross over,” Sam says. “We’ve helped each with projects [in the past] but we both wanted to do LUX and it made sense to work together,” Joshua says.