80 Spotlights Bathe a UK Palace in Light and Sound

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Turkish artist Memo Akten, former founder of the visual experience studio that is Marshmallow Laser Feast (watch The Creators Project's documentary on the group here), has been hard at work over the past three years producing Simple Harmonic Motion, an ongoing light, sound, and rhythmic systems experiment.

The artist built on his concept last month with Simple Harmonic Motion #11, an exhbition that bathed the sky surrounding England's Blenheim Palace in towering spotlights and sounds. Based on the mathematic Fourier series, Akten's work is the representative visualization of an harmonic wave.

Akten's background in audiovisual installation has led him to work on an interactive laser forest, glitchy, real-time scanning, and immersive projection mapping experiences. With his luminescent takeover of Blenheim Castle, however, the clear skies overhead gave him the opportunity to create a wholly different kind of experience. "Doing a large-scale light based installation version of Simple Harmonic Motion was something I’ve always wanted to do," Akten told The Creators Project. "As I’ve explored many different iterations of SHM over the years, I have built quite a solid software base to generate different versions with different tunings and timings. I can easily try out different numbers of oscillators, different tunings, speeds etc. very interactively."

"Large-scale" is the only way to talk about Simple Harmonic Motion #11. Akten arranged 80 tracking spotlights in a square in front of the palace, a spectacle that was visible for miles. With each illuminated oscillation, Akten paired an equivalently oscillating synth note, making the sky-high light show look like a giant string instrument. The effect is a larger-than-life evolution of Akten's orgininal, but similarly mesmerizing Simple Harmonic Motion. The installation wowed guests at the Blenheim Art Foundation's inaugural show, priming attendees for a showcase of work inside the palace, by none other than Ai Weiwei.

The Creators Project spoke to Akten about designing such a massive installation, why he plays with light, and how his experience growing up in Istanbul played into the installation.

The Creators Project: Why do you use light and sound as your primary mediums?

Memo Akten: I like playing between the domains of sight and sound because we have such different sensibilities to both. We perceive them so vastly differently, even though they are both about detecting waves, one detecting electromagnetic waves, the other detecting pressure waves. Our ability to recognize patterns sonically is so different to our ability to recognize patterns visually. Generally people (with both sight and sound) tend to be more spatially sensitive with their visual perception, while they are more temporally sensitive with their aural perception - at least it is like that for me, and perhaps for a lot of other people. I.e. it is easier for me to estimate where and how far away something is by seeing it, as opposed to just hearing it.

I am sonically more temporally sensitive, both on a macro scale (e.g. it is easier for me to detect whether a pulse is exactly on a beat accurate to a few milliseconds by hearing a repetitive sound, compared to seeing a flashing image) and also on a micro scale (e.g. it is difficult for me to detect an exact doubling of frequency in light waves – i.e. hue shift; however an exact doubling of frequency in sound waves – i.e. an octave transpose – is relatively realistic for me - and many people - to detect). By translating patterns between visual and sonic domains; and between spatial and temporal axes, we are able to recognize and realize interesting new relationships previously unnoticed.

What limitations and freedoms come with both?

I like working with light as it feels like a natural progression from my background working as a screen-based visual artist. It allows me to break into the third dimension and create sculptural forms, yet still retain the time-based elements of my work. I like the possibilities it creates in playing with our perception. Millions of years of evolution has adapted us to relying on light to see and make sense of the world and trust what we see. Once we gain the ability to play with light, we gain the ability to really start fooling the brain - an area where artists such as James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson have really explored in depth. Especially if we also study cognition and how the mind and perception works—another field I’m really interested in, and this will probably start gaining more prominence in my future work.

I also really like the ethereal, intangible yet almost tangible aspect of solid light beams, especially static or slow moving lights. When you see it in person, your stereo vision combined with the parallax created from your head movements really drill into your mind that something is there, hanging in the air, the space is divided. Of course Anthony McCall really explored that particular field in depth.

Simple Harmonic Motion #11 is part of a series devoted to investigating the relationship of complexity and simplicity. How did you stumble onto the idea?

The notion of complexity from simplicity is inherent in nature and drives almost every aspect of our lives! Evolution through Darwinian selection is complexity from simplicity. Principles of economics is (incredible) complexity from simplicity, as are climate systems. All systems which show emergent behaviour - of which there are many in nature - are complex through simplicity. The specific principle used in Simple Harmonic Motion is inspired by a few different things. There’s a classic physics experiment with a bunch of pendulums, all with different string lengths, that was an obvious inspiration. Also the implications of the Fourier series - and fourier transform - I find very fascinating, that any complex signal can be broken down into the sum of a (potentially infinite) series of simple components.

In terms of artistic exploration I was very inspired by the works of Norman McLaren, particularly 'horizontal lines' and 'vertical lines’; the works of John and James Whitney, creating amazing work through exploring very simple ideas in movement and form; also György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes, which I was first introduced to by Mira Calix while we were working on a project and discussing ideas; Steve Reich’s phasing works etc. All of these projects explore the emergence of complex behaviour through the interaction of simple multilayered rhythms. While the SHM series may seem like phasing (in the Steve Reich sense), it’s actually a very simple poly-rhythm with many many different parts, and not really phasing (unless you consider it to be phasing a simple click track across many different channels, which is pushing the definition a bit I think).

Walk us through your thought process that led to the creation of Simple Harmonic Motion #11 at Blenheim Palace. What did you have to learn in your previous Simple Harmonic Motion works in order to get to #11?

Doing a large scale light based installation version of SHM was something I’ve always wanted to do, as is a kinetic sculpture version, and a live performance version - which I’m currently working on. As I’ve explored many different iterations of SHM over the years I have built quite a solid software base to generate different versions with different tunings and timings. I can easily try out different numbers of oscillators, different tunings, speeds etc. very interactively. Because I’ve worked with moving head lights quite a bit in the past too, I’ve developed software to interactively place lights, control them, visualize them, and then send DMX to control them. So I just had to go for a recce, see the space, decide how many lights to use and how and where to place them, then setup my software with that number of lights and try out lots of different tunings and timings.

That’s really what I spend most of my time on, trying different timings and tunings. At the very start I did think about using a lighting desk, but after speaking to a few lighting programmers, and even speaking to technical support for a number of the biggest lighting desk manufacturers I gave up on that quite early on as it wouldn’t have given me the flexibility I needed. Looking at the current movement of lights, it would probably be quite easy to replicate it with a lighting desk, but it was very important for me to quickly try out many different configurations of timings and speeds.

With the setup I currently have (no lighting desk and all custom software), I can literally change the number of lights from 80 to 90 and instantly all of the behaviours, speeds, tunings for all of the lights will instantly update without me having to change anything else. Similarly if I want to change the oscillation ratio between neighbouring lights I just change one slider and it all happens in realtime without having to modify any other programs or presets. So very interactive to change parameters, and everything is visualized onscreen so I can work in the studio, and then when I’m on site it’s just translated to the real lights.

You have described the work as a "non-literal sonic interpretation of the cultural diversity of Istanbul." What are some specific memories of your experience of Istanbul that have influenced your creative work?

I grew up in a district of Istanbul called Moda, in Kadiköy. A few streets away was ‘Akmar pasaji’ where I used to hang out. An underground ‘tunnel' full of record shops, instrument shops, band rehearsal studios, tattoo parlours, whiskey bars etc. Always full of punks, rockers, metal heads, head bangers. Once inside, you’d think you were in Seattle in the early 90s, or an AC/DC Concert in the 70s, or Slayer gig in the 80s. Yet if you walked just outside and went to the corner-shop, a random stranger would tell you off for having long hair or earrings. As if completely unaware of the craziness that was going on inside. You could go to a club where everyone was high as a kite and having sex in the shadowy corners, but then when you walk outside you’d get beaten up for holding hands with your girlfriend in public. Complete clash of cultures coexisting in the same space simultaneously.

Math is another invisible layer in your work. What fascinates you most about mathematics? Would you consider yourself a mathematician?

Definitely not. If anything I vaguely work with a tiny subset of applied mathematics. I’d like to expand that subset, but I wouldn’t call my self a mathematician. I most definitely do not advance the field of mathematics, neither do I consider myself an expert in many many fields of maths. I’m just an enthusiast.

What have you learned from your Simple Harmonic Motion series? What patterns have you seen? What conclusions have you deduced?

I don’t know if I’ve deduced any conclusions, other than the confirming the notion I already had that - as linked to the above question - that there is a lot to explore in natural phenomena; a lot of poetry. And it is very rewarding work.

How do you know when Simple Harmonic Motion is complete?

There are a few more iterations to go yet, including kinetic sculptures and a couple of live performances which I’m working on right now. I think beyond that it will (or already has) start to evolve a bit as I introduce new constraints. I’m undecided if I will still continue to call the new works 'Simple Harmonic Motion’, or ‘Complex Harmonic Motion’, or something else completely. Depends on how different they evolve.

What do you hope audiences who experience Simple Harmonic Motion #11 will take away?

I don’t have very demanding expectations. I just hope they enjoy it.

The feedback that I've had from people who saw the installation shared what I would have hoped for. People found it mesmerising. They want to keep on watching it. That’s all that I’d hope for. Those people who do care to investigate further, read about it, or ask me about it, and they find out about some of the underlying principles, the incredible simplicity of it all. Perhaps these people will then start to appreciate some of the things that I appreciate too, the notions of complexity from simplicity, emergent behavior etc.

But that’s not my primary goal, that’s just a bonus. Not everyone has to find beauty in those abstract concepts. That’s a personal preference and I don’t expect everyone to share such personal tastes. To expect that would be like saying "everyone has to enjoy a shipwreck scene.” Obviously that’s not true, not everyone does have to enjoy a shipwreck scene. But you can still create a painting about a shipwreck, and make it sufficiently abstract so that people who do not enjoy shipwrecks can still find something in the painting to relate to—perhaps the energy, the drama, the movement, the tragedy, the scale of nature vs humanity etc—and enjoy the painting. That’s why I I call what I do 'behavioral abstraction’. I abstract the behavior that is found in nature, that might be otherwise not so obvious; and place it in a brand new context, in this case controlling lights and sound. The original application might not be appealing to you, but the abstracted version might be.

Visit Akten's website here to check out more of his experiments with light and sound.

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