The success of an art installation faces an obstacle course filled with the kind of challenges and pitfalls artists and developers equate to haunted house horrors. Missed deadlines, an endless drain on money and resources, finished projects that bear no resemblance to the initial integrity of the artist’s vision—with each party having a unique and fierce set of goals and desires, it’s no wonder that art installations are some of the trickiest programs to pull off.
But despite their difficulties, a successful art installation is incredibly rewarding for each party involved. Public art installations grant artists’ work visibility and can help advance their careers. Developers and owners, on the other hand, know the power of art installations to increase the value of their properties and generate publicity and interest. Most importantly, the community benefits by gaining access to an additional piece of surprise and delight in their day. Art can humanize enormous structures by creating intimate moments, or inject a thrill of discovery into an otherwise ordinary plaza. Art installations instantaneously elevate a space, creating a more dynamic, invigorating experience for the people who pass through or inhabit the area every day.
"Art House" by Sook Jin Jo
At Lightswitch, we believe that the challenges of art installation primarily originate from one source: miscommunication. Artists and developers occupy distinctly separate realms, speaking almost entirely different languages when it comes to communicating their vision and objectives. Lightswitch is uniquely situated between these two worlds. As artists ourselves, we are sensitive to the vision and principles of the creatives we work with. We are also deeply pragmatic, and have decades of experience working with diverse teams to keep projects on time and on budget. Just as importantly, our designers each carry a deep and varied set of skills that ensure our projects are completed with finesse and excellence. Lightswitch is, therefore, able to act as a bridge between artist and development team, helping both sides realize the one goal they have in common: a stunning finished product.
This artistic collaboration and technical support is exemplified by our partnerships with artists like Sook Jin Jo, a Korean artist known for her bold, clear vision and unconventional materials. Jo feels Lightswitch’s ability to take a simple concept and fully envision the result is especially beneficial to her work, saying “When I talk about my ideas simply, [they] know exactly how to proceed.” Our projects with Jo include her installation WISHING BELLS at the public plaza of the LA Metro Detention Center which involved extensive coordination with city planners and engineers. We helped Jo navigate the zoning and red tape in order to deliver a final installation that maintained her creative goals. On the opposite spectrum, we also worked with Jo on her project ART HOUSE, which in contrast to the complex planning of Wishing Bells was an unzoned, site-specific project in Nicaragua. We assisted Jo in identifying easy-to-source lighting materials within the limited market of the surrounding area for an elegant lighting element. This duality in context demonstrates Lightswitch’s ability to nimbly jump from project to project, supporting the artist and their vision through a wide range of challenges.
"Wishing Bells" by Sook Jin Jo
Just as we understand the artists’ mentality, Lightswitch is also in-tune with the goals and objectives of developers and implementers. Rather than a conflict-of-interest, this understanding allows us to protect not only the artist’s vision but also their reputation. We help artists install their projects within the budget and schedule parameters set by the developers, ensuring both parties have a positive experience throughout the implementation that can help foster future endeavours. Lightswitch has spent decades working on complex projects that have installation periods ranging from a month to mere hours. Our approach relies on simultaneously coordinating multiple layers and levels to orchestrate a final result that combines nuances and details into a cohesive program.
This tactic often helps us succeed where others have not. For example, the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport installation FLIGHT PATHS by the late Steve Waldeck had been stuck in limbo for almost a decade before the team with Lightswitch was brought on. The art project “had an incredibly long gestation period,” acknowledged Hartsfield-Jackson art program manager David Vogt, citing delays due to the struggling economy and other funding challenges. This airport is also one of the busiest in the world, and installing such a complex project around the non-stop cadence presented a significant challenge. Furthermore, the team had struggled to find equipment and to identify an implementation plan that would fully realize Waldeck’s vision. Lightswitch was able to combat both of these problems with our layered approach, quickly and efficiently identifying the technology that would best convey Waldeck’s concept. The final Flight Paths is an enormous success, providing a dynamic, kinetic experience for airport travellers that infused a moment of wonder into the mundanity of the airport rush. Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has called the artwork “one of the most spectacular pieces of art in the entire Southeast.” This experience showcases Lightswitch’s ability to transform artistic ideals into practical, implementable components for a development team, and push once-dorment projects into fully-realized outcomes. Vogt perfectly sums up the aim of the work: “To make this more than just a pass-through, but an experience, something you remember.”
"Flight Paths" by Steve Waldeck
While understanding and pragmatism are important expressions of our philosophical approach, they would be nothing without the bedrock of our value proposition—at Lightswitch, we are really good at what we do. Our designers have decades of experience across a broad range of sectors and industries, often resulting in unconventional and brilliant solutions to our clients’ problems. Artistic and developer clients alike recognize our ability to provide exceptional visual design solutions in a myriad of settings. This flexibility has become even more important as art continues to move into the three-dimensional, experiential world, resulting in projects that are indeed more dynamic but also more complex.
"Flight Paths" by Steve Waldeck
Our work with Cliff Garten has taken on a number of these non-traditional settings, transforming parking garages and plazas with enormous, illuminated sculptural pieces. These projects have innumerable moving parts that necessitate both expert project management as well as minute lighting precision. Garten often brings Lightswitch on at the very inception of a project, opening up the dialogue as well as a collaborative setting to ensure that the lighting and artwork are not only complementary, but energize each other for a holistic, dynamic result. For our work with Garten on the stunning “Los Angeles Opens Its Heart of Compassion,” we worked extensively on previsualization efforts that allowed Garten to review the design before the lighting was ordered. This tactic created a seamless transition from design to implementation efforts.
"Los Angeles Opens Its Heart Of Compassion" by Cliff Garten
Our most recent project with Garten encapsulates this phenomenon. Named GRAVITY AND GRACE the 150-feet long by 15-foot high large-scale LED public artwork integrated into the architecture of JBG Smith’s Central Place Plaza in Arlington, Virginia. The piece is unique in its variation—the ever-changing artwork incorporates real-time environmental data that organizes its spectral shifts of color, form, and motion parameters, providing endless variations while remaining true to Garten’s sophisticated color palette. Garten was very satisfied with the result, remarking, “Although I had a decade of experience using and programming full spectrum LED lights on my sculptures, Lightswitch opened the possibilities for seeing digital color as a continually changing temporal transformation controlled by real time data and chance. Their command of the technologies challenged and extended my abilities to see new forms for my work.” Our reliable expertise has yielded multiple projects with Garten as well as an on-going relationship based on trust and mutual respect.
"Gravity and Grace" by Cliff Garten
Similarly, visual artist Natalie Frank called upon Lightswitch when she was tasked with adapting her two-dimensional paintings into set pieces and costumes for the Ballet Austin’s world premiere GRIMM TALES. Our skillset brought a gravitas and artistic sensitivity to the project, and allowed Frank to fill the stage with her work for an arresting, intensely compelling display. When asked about her experience working with Lightswitch, Frank said “Working with Lightswitch was a delight, from start to finish. They transformed my drawings into animations with flourish and character, and they brought my drawings alive, with a great respect to my hand and voice in drawing.”
"Grimm Tales" by Natalie Frank | Ballet Austin
Both our collaborations with Garten and with Frank showcase the technical skill of our team of top designers in the industry, but delivered with a collaborative spirit that brings all parties’ needs and visions together.
In the end, it's this collaborative spirit that makes us so adept at partnering in artistic installations. Lightswitch sees itself as the conduit between all parties, facilitating understanding and using our shared vocabulary to convey meaning to the various stakeholders. Our measure of success is ensuring that every party feels successful. We understand the objectives of both the artist and of the implementation team, and work to create a final product that meets these unique goals and expectations. Whatever makes you proud, Lightswitch can help you build it.
To read more about the artists referenced in this piece and their work, click the links below.