Light-Spray Visual has been creating light paintings for more than 15 years. Using upgraded overhead projectors and mechanical structures, the hungarian artist group projects their art to walls around europe.
Altough Finland is a familiar country to them, Light-Spray Visual will visit Oulu and Lumo for the first time with their piece called Natural Balance. We interviewed Mark Csoke from the artist group about their history, style and technique.
You are known as Fényszóró Visual, or Light-Spray Visual in English. Is there a deeper meaning behind the name?
– The name refers to spray paint, like the light is also scattered, or spread. We got the name from an important friend, without whom the team would not be the same.
Tell me about your history. How long have you been doing visual projects?
– Fifteen years ago, several friends joined a cultural association where we were introduced to the classic slide projection, where photographs are projected onto screens. It was then that we started experimenting with creating slides on small sheet of glass using transparent paints.
Later on, this technique became more and more sophisticated, and we realised that it was not only possible to project on canvas, but the building itself could also serve as a surface. It seems simple, but at that time it was not that obvious.
At that time, many people in Hungary started to do this, and analogue projection developed explosively. We know now that it was a very unique process and that few countries have developed it so naturally, as they do not see many opportunities with overhead projectors.
I think many people are familiar with overhead projectors from school classrooms.
– Of course! Probably we have one of the largest collections of this machines. It is hard to say how many classrooms we have or had enough projectors for, because we have scrapped a lot of them due to lack of space.
How has your style and technique evolved during these years?
– At the beginning we painted on 5×5 cm glass, then when we switched from slide projectors to overhead projectors, the more exciting years came, as we could now paint on 30×30 cm glass. At the same time, we were thinking about why not build structures that could move the glass sheets.
Nowadays we create art on tablet-computers, but we use digital pencil for the creation and not something downloaded and edited from the internet.
The installation also uses mechanical effects. What makes you want to use practical effects, and not, for example, just creating the effect on a computer?
– Our first idea was to create something that is a bit like an amusement park, where anywhere you look there are coloured giant lights moving. We also wanted to give something monumental to the people which take them out of their everyday life.
Otherwise, we are big fans of the Steampunk style, which is, of course mainly fictional era, where the electricity is not that developed and everything is centred around steam engine, gears, open mechanics, etc.
At the same time, we like to use our structures to show how the machinery of the technical world is based on basic mechanics. Because of that our show can be seen as a light show and also as an installation itself.
You seem to tour Europe quite a lot. How many different countries have you shown your art in?
– We had a full half year, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Finland. Overall, we had projections in 16-17 countries, but the number is growing.
This is not your first time in Finland. What are your feelings about our country and how are you expecting Oulu to be?
– Our main expectation is that Oulu is in that north that we can see an elk or at least a road sign of them. Just kidding.
We had two projections in Jyväskylä before, we really like your country, beautiful landscapes, sauna, and of course the people. We have met only nice and naturally helpful people. Our main observation is that people in all professions and jobs are equally respected people, which is very sympathetic.
What kind of message do you want to convey with Natural Balance?
– The theme of the festival is well-being, and we wanted to bring the visitors from the city back to the nature, highlighting the importance of taking care of the local and global environment which contribute to our physical and psychical well-being. We will use different element of mechanical world which smoothly transform into tranquillity.
Text: Jaakko Koivukangas
