MOVING LIGHTS Chris Noelle, aka TOFA, on cros sing creative boundaries in search of something new

Are you working on something interesting at the moment?

I’m working on a new mapping installation, a huge press conference in Vienna, where we will be providing the content for the projection mapping.

Projection mapping. What exactly does that mean?

Imagine you have a huge building and you want to project images onto it. We rebuild that structure in 3D and project onto it. We can make a living surface on any kind of object.

Sounds like a big technical challenge?

Oh, you need to know where the projectors are… Where the people are standing… And the theme of the event. Then you start on research, and only later get into production. There’s a lot of research first.

We produce video content and most of it is generated in 3D, there may also be a mix-down with After Effects and live footage, but this is totally different to the lightpainting.

Your lightpaintings have something magical about them, like capturing ghosts, how does it work?

It’s like when you have long exposure photos of cars driving by, and their tail lights make these trails.

So, basically, you put your camera on manual mode, and then you can act in front of the camera, or capture environments where there’s moving, or static, light.

Inside your scene, you are never visible because long term-exposure just erases everything which is in motion.

Has it taken a long time to master the tools used to manipulate light?

It’s a permanent learning process, because the software is never finished. Each company comes up with a new version every year. So you have to train your skills again and again… And again.

On some software, it’s easy. On others, it’s quite hard, particularly when you get into the coding - that’s not my favourite. But with all these new features and these technical skills, you either have to find someone in your network who is a reliable partner, or you have to learn it for yourself.

Do you enjoy the learning process?

Well, I wish I could have a couple of interns who would do just what I want! But that involves cost, and if you’re freelancing, you have to manage everything on your own.

That means software, but you have to know the hardware too. You have to know how to locate any errors that might have crept into the project - and how to solve them.

And if you don’t have the ability to solve it by yourself, you must have the right phone number for the guy who could help you out.

When you move a project from the computer to the real world, is that a tricky process?

Well, I started with Photoshop version 1.0. But I grew up with analogue cameras.

So, I have the advantage that I learned from the analogue gear, how to solve problems, or to find solutions, before I switched into the digital world. For the younger generation this is quite hard, because they don’t have that experience from the analogue times.

It’s an advantage if you have an insight into both worlds. Because a lot of filters, for example, that you see today on TikTok or Instagram, they rely on analogue gear, on old mixing recorders and devices for video effects. All that comes back around eventually, and if you can reproduce it with an analogue machine, it’s even better.

Do you have a basement full of cool old machines?

Sometimes I think, “Now, finally, I can sell that thing. I’ll never need it again.” But a couple of years later, I always come back to wishing I hadn’t sold it!

At home, I try to keep things tidy, there’s no cabling lying around. But I do keep getting new gear. For example, I recently bought a really interesting little machine, which is a Polaroid transfer printer. You just lay your iPhone on top and away you go. So I’m also working with a new technique called Polaroid transfer. You cut out the Polaroid, put it in hot water, and transfer the gel print of the Polaroid onto watercolour paper. And then you have a unique artwork of a Polaroid, but which came out of a digital device. Getting an analogue output from the computer. That’s a big theme for me.

You move very freely between digital and analogue. What do you discover in that process?

When I work on art projects, I always like to get something which doesn’t depend on power.

Basically, if you have a print, or you have a picture in mind, and you have it stored on your hard drive, it will get lost. After 20 years my hard drive is now around 16 terabytes!

And all of that has to be somehow managed and sorted. So I prefer to have some of the things I love as real prints, as pieces of art.

[top] Flying Steps, 2007

Shooting with the B-boys of Flying Steps at an abandoned industrial zone. "Some nice reflections too, it had just rained."

[bottom] Festival of Lights, IHC Tower, 2007

At the Festival of Lights, Berlin, Chris’ first hugescale Pani projection artwork was thrown onto the IHC tower.