strange light that refracts everything

multi-colored circular lights swivel, refract, bleed

Refraction Series offers an experimental approach to optics, using simple materials and techniques to generate a range of images of pure light and color in motion. The film is inspired by the ideas of early scientists who investigated the nature of light and visual perception, particularly the experiments and writings of the tenth-century Arab mathematician/scientist Ibn al-Haytham and the English mathematician/scientist Isaac Newton.

A Light Unseen invites the viewer to see the invisible: the reflected and refracted light caught and morphed by the fine threads of a spider web. Here the camera goes beyond the limitations of the bare human eye reaching for a spectacle of light and shape that is sure to delight.

According to a medieval legend, in 1345 a mysterious light would have fascinated the citizens of Manresa (Catalonia, Spain). For their medieval eyes light was much more than an optical phenomenon, it was the focus of philosophical, mystical and metaphysical reflections. Light was considered the origin of life and “the principle of all beauty” (Robert Grosseteste). The low tech video art piece “That mysterious light”, proposes a dialogue with medieval thought that invites us to ponder about the role of light in our current lives, in a context characterised by excessive energy consumption. Through sound and visual textures, the relationship between light, nature and thought is explored.

Light is a fascinating phenomenon. Without light, there would be no cinema, no film – and no life. So light is at the origin of everything, and yet it remains invisible to the eye until it hits matter. This moment is – quite literally – the starting point of Thomas Riedelsheimer’s latest work, for the springtime spectacle of rainbow shreds in the cinematographer and documentary filmmaker’s flat became the starting point of a search for the origin of the images we form of this world. For this quest he dived deep into two spheres that seem to follow different laws but always strive to fathom the magical: physics and art.