Radical Light Kai Art Center

The video clip is an outtake from a 20 min doc video by Stella Saarts for Kai Art Center on Anne Katrine Senstad's monumental and immersive sculptural light installation on the essence of perception, elements of purification, and the sensorial experiences of space, entitled Radical Light. The experiential light environment is defined by sets of matrices and an enveloping horizon and accompanied by en enveloping infinite composition by acclaimed composer JG Thirlwell. 


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Radical Light - Anne Katrine Senstad 

Exhibition open from January 26 – April 26, 2020

Kai Art Center is proud to present a new large-scale light installation by renowned Norwegian artist Anne Katrine Senstad, created especially for the newly opened art center in Port Noblessner in Tallinn, Estonia.

Senstad’s immersive light sculpture environment is an invitation to encounter the perceptive sensations of light and sound in pure form and their transformational effect on the experience of space. Constructed of neon lights, the unique luminal properties effect our cognitive system where the artificiality of LED lights fall short. As one of Senstad’s largest indoor works to date, the light sculpture is conceived as a monument and a matrix – a vast spectral light sphere which allows the public to experience being enveloped in the radiance of light of the highest spectrums when wandering through the historic former submarine factory housing the 450m2 exhibition space.

With a unique sound environment composed specifically for Radical Light by acclaimed composer JG Thirlwell, spatial audio arrangements engulf the space in luminous sounds in pure form. Senstad has collaborated with Thirlwell on numerous occasions since 2000, most notably Senstad’s solo exhibition during the 56th Venice biennale in 2015, The Vanity of Vanities.

While the exhibition takes place from January through April during some of the darkest months in Estonia, the immense light sculpture illuminates the dark season of the northern hemisphere.

The film and lecture program accompanying the exhibition opens an important chapter in the history of art – from the late 1960s to early 1970s – inspired by minimalist and land art and represented by a number of famous American artists such as Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Walter de Maria, Doug Wheeler and James Turrell. Films will include Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art (2015), Spiral Jetty (1970) and Sun Tunnels (1978).

The film program will begin with Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art (2015, by James Crump) on February 5th and 19th at 6pm at Kai cinema. The screenings of Sun Tunnels and Spiral Jetty will take place on March 4th and 18th.

Kai Art Center offers guided tours at the exhibition in Estonian, English, Russian, Finnish, Swedish and German. Please contact us to book a tour.

Read an essay about the exhibition written by prof. Andres Kurg in English, Finnish or Russian.

Supporters: Viru Keskus, Utilitas, Royal Norwegian Embassy in Estonia, NBK/Vederlags fondet, Norway 

Special thanks to: ABC Motors, AkzoNobel, JAA Disain, Proplastik, Põhjala Brewery, Red Hat Group Design, Valge Klaar

The Sensory Chamber - Kai Art Center

A short video by Stella Saarts for Kai Art Center with a short interview by Anne Katrine Senstad on her installation the Sensory Chamber as part of the solo exhibition Radical Light at Kai Art Center.

Eternity

- Arthur Rimbaud, 1872

It has been found again.

What? – Eternity.

It is the sea fled away 

With the sun

Sentinel soul,

Let us whisper the confession 

Of the night full of nothingness 

And the day on fire.

From humain approbation,

From common urges

You diverge here

And fly off as you may.

Since from you alone,

Satiny embers,

Duty breathes 

Without anyone saying: at last.

Here is no hope,

No orietur.

Knowledge and fortitude,

Torture is certain.

It has been found again.

What? – Eternity.

It is the sea fled away

With the sun.

The Sensory Chamber installation contains a video projection of the video work Beckoned to Blue in seven colors onto a bed of salt and sound composed for the installation in dialogue with the spatial light environment and neon sculpture installation Elements IV that constitutes Senstad's solo exhibition Radical Light at Kai Art Center in Tallinn, Estonia. The colors travel through red, blue, green, white, black, pink and teal and go through mesmerizing monochrome glitched and sparkled spaces into compositions of expanding lines and circles reflecting our inner space confined in our bodies and minds, yet echoes the infinite vastness of space, the universe, time, awareness of self, our emotive and cognitive system. While the video is projected onto a bed of salt, a component found in almost all things known, an element of the human constitution and represents the solidity of the earth and ocean, a grounding element - the whiteness of the salt reflects the projected colors while offering a materiality. The composition created especially for Radical Light is by acclaimed composer JG Thirlwell and accompanies all spaces of the large scale installations in the former submarine factory built by the last Tsar of the Russian Empire in 1911, enveloping the visitor in a sound space reflecting the  infinity of light, elements of electricity and nobility of neon gasses.