lighting

The highlight of today was going to the Light Show at the Hayward Gallery - all kinds of good things, from Dan Flavin through Nancy Holt to Jenny Holzer to James Turrell to a fabulously disorienting piece by Conrad Shawcross (eeeek: to think that I met him before he went to art school).  But - and not just from the point of view of Flash!, though it will certainly find its way into the book - may even open a chapter - my favorite installation was Olafur [now, that's a good name for a cat]] Eliasson's Model for a Timeless Garden.  This was in one of the pitch black rooms, and consisted of a long table/bench on which were - oh, maybe fifteen or twenty little, different, fountains, which were all frozen, as if into ice, by the array of strobe lights in the ceiling above them.  In other words (though this was never stated), they were mimicking the effect of lightning on a fountain that supposedly made Fox Talbot think ... aha! .. I could use rapidly flashing light to stop motion and photograph it ... 

Of course, one wasn't allowed to take any photographs, of anything - or I (and doubtless many others) would have stayed there forever (and, nb, one really has to book in advance - I didn't realize this, and was very happy to snag one of the few tickets going - perhaps a piece of good fortune resulting from the fact that the weather was wet and vile beyond belief).  But there were lots of light-themed - well, lights - in the gift store ...