Te Papa’s spectacular new art gallery is now open in Wellington and one exhibition that has the critics raving is Tiffany Singh’s Total internal reflection.
Artist Tiffany Singh believes engaging with the arts can improve physical and mental health. She intends Total internal reflection to be an expression of our collective wellbeing through colour. This experimental installation invites you to choose a colour based on how you feel right now. Press a button to express your current mood by selecting from one of the 7 colour of the chakra: Crown – Purple, 3rd eye – Indigo, Throat – Blue, Heart – Green, Solar – yellow, Sacral – Orange, Root – Red.
New Zealand design team Toulouse deliver technical solutions to support creative concepts and their initially brief from Tiffany was to work with her to create a lighting experience that involved the visitor selecting a colour and that colour being added to the evolving communal light sculpture. The experience within the room gradually shifts in hue to the feeling and temperament of the visitors during the publics’ ongoing interactions.
The colour choice, time and date is recorded, stored and uploaded to the cloud in parallel to the lighting experience so artists can use the raw data for their own works. In the near future the public will be able to see an online visualisation of the ever changing experience.
Collecting the colour selection of the visitor is done prior to entry of the exhibition, so they have no understanding of the experience that are effecting or adding to. As each colour is selected by the visitor, it is then randomly placed within the space taking over a luminaire from a previous selection. The room is always full of ever changing light.
As a visitor you initially experience the room in your selected colour and then the space transitions back to the total internal reflection. Showing the sum of all the past interactions.
Toulouse’s Marc Simpson worked with Tiffany and Te Papa’s curatorial staff in creating this interactive exhibition using 36 x ShowPro’s LED Par 18’s.
Toulouse manufactured custom spun, tapered aluminium top hats that were powder coated to match the exterior of the PAR’s with a matt black paint finish within.
The signal path from the analogue button inputs through to data processing and storage, and then on to the DMX for the PAR’s.
Each of the PAR’s has a three circuit universal track adaptor fitted which provides mechanical and electrical connection to the lighting track at Te Papa.
As a commissioned art work, the light fittings and control hardware become part of the Te Papa collection, not unlike the fluorescent light fittings from the numerous Bill Culbert works in collections around the world.
“Working with Tiffany has been a wonderful experience,” commented Marc Simpson. “From the initial concept meeting through the tests and trials to the final realised experience, it has been a fabulous journey over six months.”
The attached photos show the interactive buttons and a collection of photos taken by visitors using #totalinternalreflection
