Light Art Space (LAS) has announced the first virtual artwork by acclaimed American artist Judy Chicago, Judy Chicago Rainbow AR, which will launch today 10th November 2020. Through this new LAS commission, Chicago continues her long-running Atmospheres series, inviting global audiences to experience a newly created Smoke Sculpture TM in Augmented Reality.
‘It has been thrilling to work with LAS and International Magic on a new way to bring the experience of my Smoke Sculptures TM to audiences around the world who might not be familiar with my long-standing e orts to soften and feminise the often-harsh, patriarchal world around us. At this moment in time, it seems even more important to o er the opportunity to bathe our environments with light, art and beauty in order to inspire hope and through a visual metaphor, suggest the possibility of positive change.’
Judy Chicago, Artist,
Chicago is renowned as an artist, author, feminist, educator and intellectual whose career spans ve decades. She began her Atmospheres series in the late 1960s, working with pyrotechnics to produce complex rework pieces and presented as ephemeral, site-specific performances intended to transform and soften the landscape. As an artist whose practice is deeply rooted in the physical experience of these works, Judy Chicago Rainbow AR marks a new stage in Chicago’s long history with pyrotechnics, working with new AR technologies to push the boundaries of the medium.
Produced in close collaboration with LAS and experience designers International Magic, Chicago has created a new form of her Smoke Sculptures TM, which will now be brought into the digital realm. During this uncertain time when public gatherings are limited and our relationships with personal and public spaces are changing, Judy Chicago Rainbow AR will be accessible to audiences wherever they are based, allowing them to have their own site-specific experience, activating and ‘beautifying’ their own surroundings. The artwork will be available as an app, which can be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store and will be compatible with a broad range of mobile devices.
Photo courtesy of Through the Flower Archives Courtesy of the artist; Salon 94, New York; and Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco
Bringing individuals together through their experience of the work, Judy Chicago Rainbow AR will unfold as an interactive performance, releasing plumes of smoke and changing colour. Curling and billowing across the viewers’ screens, the work will invite audiences to interact with the smoke, walking through or around it. Chicago conceived the scenography for the piece and chose the colours and sequencing to o er a unique experience of her smoke performances only possible in the virtual world. The experience will be accompanied by a polyphonic soundtrack, realised in collaboration with sound designer Colin Bailey, which uses soundscapes made from recordings from Judy Chicago’s work with pyrotechnician Chris Souza, of Pyro Spectaculars.
‘Augmented Reality can open so many doors for artists to communicate in new ways. This is important today, more than ever, as people are more willing to interact with art on their devices. The fact that artists such as Judy Chicago are willing to push the boundaries is what makes the future feel exciting.’
Adam Rodgers, Creative Director, International Magic.
Innovative new techniques were used to translate and simulate the aesthetic and unique behaviours of Chicago’s Smoke Sculptures TM inside Augmented Reality. International Magic used cutting-edge technologies including device motion, uid smoke simulations, real-time particle systems, noise shaders and harmonic sound to create an authentic, interactive experience, unique to the viewer each time they enter the work.
Judy Chicago Rainbow AR can be downloaded for free through:
App Store & Google Play
About the Artist
Judy Chicago is an artist and author of fourteen books, which will be ampli ed by the 2021 publication by Thames and Hudson of The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago with an Introduction by Gloria Steinem. Her career spans almost six decades during which time she has produced a prodigious body of art that has been exhibited all over the world. In the 1970s, she pioneered Feminist art and feminist art education in a series of programmes in southern California. She is best known for her monumental work The Dinner Party, executed between 1974 and 1979, now permanently housed as the centerpiece of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, New York.
In 1977, Chicago founded Through the Flower, a non-pro t art organisation that managed the overwhelming public support of The Dinner Party, which then toured internationally. It went on to sponsor, tour and permanently place The Birth Project and help to support the important Holocaust Project, created with her husband, photographer Donald Woodman. In addition to a number of institutional partnerships, Through the Flower now supports the TTF Art Space in Belen, New Mexico, an art and resource centre aimed at continuing the organisation‘s goal of overcoming the erasure of women‘s cultural production.
Her work is in numerous collections and her ongoing influence continues to be acknowledged worldwide – in 2018 she was named one of Time Magazine’s ‘100 Most Influential People’ and Artsy magazine’s ‘Most Influential Artists’. In 2019, she received the Visionary Woman award from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and was an honoree at the annual Hammer Museum gala in Los Angeles. A career retrospective of her work at the de Young Museum in San Francisco is scheduled for August 2021.
International Magic
Founded by Adam Rodgers and Stefan Endress, International Magic responds to shifts in culture and technology through engaging creative strategies, new modes of interaction and strong visual direction. Clients and collaborators include leading cultural innovators: FKA twigs, Martine Rose, Nike NRG, 032c, Somerset House, Manchester International Festival and Light Art Space. intmagic.com
About LAS
Light Art Space (LAS) is a Berlin-based non-pro t art foundation, working at the intersection of art, new technology and science. Championing new exhibition formats and experimental projects, LAS is committed to commissioning and presenting engaging experiences that are relevant to our local and international communities. Light is a leitmotif for the programme that fosters a future-led approach challenging our perception of the present and stimulating future imaginaries. lightartspace.org
