LET THERE BE LIGHT Artistic research
Documentation
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Documentation P. 2
The documentation compiled here provides insight into a conceptual research for an artistic work with light and colour. Dawn in the morning has emerged as a central element in terms of content and form. There is an extensive, specialized literature on the various properties of light and colour. Furthermore, light and colour effects can be isolated, emphasized and worked out in everyday situations by means of photographic media (photography, film, digital image processing and colour printouts). These simulations, derivations, interpretations - shadows of reality - are no substitute for a (walk-in) light and colour installation or work in a theatrical context. The present documentation in its nature is a linear enumeration. This imposes a chronology and selective perception that might diminish or even contradict the magic of the subject at hand. These shortcomings must be kept in mind when reading. Every day at dawn, light, colour perception, spatial vision return to sight in slow motion. Each dawn is unique, there is no repetition, there are no possible identical copies as with digital media. A phenomenal spectacle. Every day is different, every dawn unique and at the same time universal. For us humans, this is an essential and yet universal phenomenon, a common basic component of everyone's life. With our birth, we enter the cycle of dark and light that accompanies us until the end of our lives. Correspondence, films, books, music and other references are catalysts in any project development. Copyrights of sources photographed for internal work purposes and shown here belong to the respective rights holders. Should they wish to have them removed, please let me know, and I will do so immediately. This document provides just a glimpse, a fraction of the materials produced during the research period, comprising more than 35 gigabytes of photos, video and time-lapse footage and over 300 pages of notes. A selection is available here as "Remix", newly compiled and complemented by excerpts of the exchange with the involved Australian composer David William Pyke. The project represents an extended foundation for the development of theatrical or installation work with the medium of light. Pipo Tafel Cologne, June 2022
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Documentation P. 3
from The Nature of Colours: The History of Traditional Colours and Pigments (Colour Teachings, Volume 1) | Patrick Baty
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Documentation P. 4
...the visible counterpart of that other life force, heat. Rudolf Arnheim | Art and Vision. A Psychology of the Creative Eye
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Documentation P. 5
I'm looking for miracoli and memorabilia, like the old Pliny in his natural history. The further colour recedes in time and space, the more it glows. Golden memories. Not the gold of wedding rings, but a philosophical gold that shines forth in the mind like the precious stones in Revelation. Emerald, ruby, hyacinth, chalcedony, jasper. Colour, like these jewels, is precious. Even more precious, because unlike the glittery things, you can't own them. Colour slips through your fingers and defleeds. You can't lock them up in a jewellery box when it disappears into the darkness. Derek Jarman | Chroma
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Documentation P. 6
ASTRONOMICAL DAWN
I am standing in the quasi-darkness of astronomical twilight. 18 degrees is the angle from sun to horizon when the first of three twilight phases begins before the sun rises.
...night that enveloped the city.... ...under the stars around the world. Jean-Claude Izzo | Aldebaran
We cannot always see the stars. Clear sight of them is depending on light and weather conditions and the surrounding architecture - as well as "light pollution" in densely populated areas. We can always see the dawn if we have access to a window or a view outside, or even better, a view of the sky.
take us in every morning of our lives to give us a new confidence to give life Gaston Bachelard | Poetics of Space
In the eyes are different biological receptors for different lighting situations.
from Architectural Lighting Design Designing with Light and Space | Hervé Descottes with Cecilia E. Ramos
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Dawn is the rebirth of the world. As the ancient Egyptians so believed, the Sun God, Ra, would die each night and be reborn.So ancient mysticism and cultures such as Japan have venerated this sacred time as creative and energising. Dawn is a solo which embodies the ritual calm and shadows of the pre-dawn twilight which metamorphoses into dynamism as the orb of cosmic rays traverses the horizon and recharges the biosphere. David Pyke
Dawn as a "bridge stretched across the stream of time" (Percey Bysshe Shelley, Defence of Poetry) connects night with day, darkness with light. A cycle as old as the existence of the sun, by the light of which countless beginnings of day "stride through eternity" (Shelley).
the first bird begins to sing NAUTICAL DAWN
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Documentation P. 8
Creating the sky in the theatre as a work of art that is alive, using an intuitive (visual) language, clear and distinct, organic and unique as we all are in every moment.
from The Nature of Colours: The History of Traditional Colours and Pigments (Colour Teachings, Volume 1) | Patrick Baty
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Documentation P. 9
david: it’s all an illusion, but what times does is, it puts things in a slow motion, it is a construct, we invented it - a dolphin doesn’t know what time is. only humans come up with a measurement. and we define it as a linear measurement so we can analyse it. it’s all a theater. pipo: maybe it is this huge illusion of dawn, this spectacle, that makes things so unreal that it connects us to something unlinear in us, something that is also true. d: einstein understood that. d: when the buddha meditates and gets calm that’s because there is another energy. when you get to nothingness what means that time exactly stops. time is like the farm fences, in nature there is no farm fence, there is only mountains, farns, lakes. that’s what man does, we put time there, to have a measurement. p:dawn is the perfect symbol for nothingness and still there is something in it. it is full of potential meaning for us, a huge metaphor for potential meaning within colour and the slow motion accesses to us d: the notion of the new is very important for mankind.
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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CIVIL DAWN https://bit.ly/dawnICE https://vimeo.com/707520353/43bf84e349 (alternative link)
SUNRISE David composed a solo inspired by our exchange about dawn. He was thinking of the moment when the sun rises. He had it recorded by a French cellist and sent me the first test recording. As synchronized as possible with the appearance of the sun the next morning, I turn on the music on the laptop next to me and make this video recording. https://bit.ly/dawndavid https://vimeo.com/710720763/a00fda6af4 (alternative link)
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Sound, space and lighting technology Instruments for a slow-motion choreography of light and colour.
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Is dawn a 16:9 format thing? Is it a frame? Is it a vertical thing/ work? If yes why and when is it vertical? Could it be 360 degrees and then become vertical? Looked at through „windows“ like in an aquarium?
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Video message to David https://bit.ly/dawn-voiceover https://vimeo.com/707792106/45e8a97860 (alternative link)
So what if this theater, what if this would be a small space, this theater. But we'd be able to look at almost like standing like I am now in the viewer's perspective, stand there and watch this model and see Dawn happening, so it's kind of a light installation. Maybe later it could be happening in a theater, you know, like big time setup. So that's one idea. Then the second is, in this theater, if I could work with 3D modeling and work out the different silhouettes, things, then, like create a set design. Actually, really a set design. I could do it with like as a kid, we used to have small trains, and you build this landscape and the trains would ride in this landscape, and you build mountains and little houses and all of those things. It was a very popular thing back in the days. Also, grown-ups would do it, you know. There's a fascination of building an environment. Later there were games and PC. There was SimCity. But that was virtual. So thinking if there could be a model that is one thing and then create a light that illuminates all of that. But it's a real light. I don't know how the filters could be created. If it could be a video of Dawn, that is, then. You know, almost like a video that is transferred to slides and on those slides, if they would be in a kind of liquid structure. So there is a screen and a light behind it, and it's translucent and then the liquid of this screen crystals, they change, and they make the clouds and all of that. It's almost like those lamps, lava lamps, and then their shine through materiality. It has this sky quality.
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Documentation P. 14
Sketch David W. Pyke
Message to David
I think if I can work with floating screens and a very thin fabric silk - or something like, you know, long grass leaves that are moving in the wind - that the visitors will make the environment change. This way we can get actually something that corresponds to, you know, the monks' thing you talked about - the monastery that had a very dark entrance corridor that made people have to go slowly before entering a room - that the people get aware of themselves by seeing the screens float. So they have actually an impact. It's a kind of ping pong of awareness that hopefully creates an environment that is dynamic, that has micro movements, that has slow motion, that has action and cause, and that has that poetic natural flow, organic energy. bit.ly/floatingscreens https://vimeo.com/674247818/6463a00c96 (alternative link)
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Documentation P. 15
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Documentation P. 16
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
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Documentation P. 17
Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR.
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Documentation P. 18
Pipo Tafel . 2022 . www.pipotafel.com