Solar Power/Solar System

Solar Power/Solar System is a project designed to explore our view of the natural world from within our built and technology-mediated environment. Far from being a simplistic or exclusively critical view of this relationship, this project seeks to bring a piece of the natural world back into our experience through some of the same tools and technology that contribute to our distance from it.

The sunlight collected by the solar panels during the day is recycled to power the LEDs illuminating the “streetlights” above. The light is cast strongly onto the back of the elevated PVC panel, which has been drilled with a pattern of over 1,400 holes to replicate the actual night sky as would be seen from the time and location of the piece’s installation. Each hole or star is also fitted with a small segment of fiber optic rod to transmit the light from the back to the front of the panel more completely and increase visibility and luminosity of the star field.

 

In a city of lights and power, the Solar Power/Solar System imports the lost and subtle light of the stars, while, as a light emitting
installation in a festival of light installations, it also contributes to that loss. Viewers are invited to stand, sit, or lay in the artificial grass and gaze at the actual stars that would be visible if they were not hidden by our own network of lights that make so much of urban life possible.

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Installation views from Light City Baltimore 2018