2024, artificial atmospheric phenomena
site-specific
with Bruce Yoder
custom LEP lights (Laser Excited Phosphor), custom diffraction optics, haze, MDF wood, PMMA mirrors, Eurotruss, rotating turntables, aluminum extrusions, multi-channel audio
_Pitch
The installation recreates naturally occurring optical atmospheric phenomena commonly referred to as rainbows by artificial means. It raises different questions on how we interact with our environment and explores the inherently human desire to imitate as well as our delusion to eventually control nature.
_Operating principle
The installation uses custom LEP light sources (Laser Excited Phosphor), diffraction lenses and rotating mirrors to create slowly moving artificial rainbow phenomena. A multichannel sound loop emphasizes this ever-changing landscape with a generative audio spatialization.
_Artistic statement
The installation attempts to imitate some of nature’s most astonishing wonders: rainbows and other atmospheric optical phenomena, such as halos and solar coronae.
Using multiple highly-focus light sources and specialized optics, the transdisciplinary collaboration of artist Lukas Truniger and scientist Bruce Yoder create synthetic rainbows that move and transform slowly in the exhibition space. The piece plays with the perception of the visitors who navigate the room, contemplating each rainbow from different positions. Inspired by the coupled motions of our solar system, it uses periodic rotations of both sound and light to produce an ever evolving environment.
Implausible Rainbows raises questions about how we interact with our environment and explores the intrinsic human desire to imitate, as well as to exert control over nature.
Weather control has historically been a crucial issue of military and geopolitical concern. While other atmospheric phenomena such as clouds feature a highly geostrategic interest in terms of access to water and cooling, rainbows are phenomena of pure aesthetic and poetic interest.
Truniger and Yoder reflect on this type of engineering and appropriate its techniques, while disassociating it from the motives of power. The installation highlights ideas of climate engineering, geoengineering and weather control, reusing these approaches for an artistic experience. The work also speculates on what these phenomena might look like in a future where atmospheric conditions are altered by far-future climate change – for example: how would the rainbow of an aging and cooling sun look?
_Exhibitions
04/2025 ADAF Athens Digital Arts Festival – (GR)
12/2024 LABoral Centro de Arte – Gijón (ES)
_Project credits
<> Concept & realization: Lukas Truniger & Bruce Yoder
_Support
+ LABoral Centro de Arte
+ EMAP European Media Art Platform
+ Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council
+ Ernst Göhner Stiftung
+ Stiftung Anne-Marie Schindler
+ Cassinelli Vogel Stiftung
