May 22, 2015

Light Passages

A light installation inspired by professors Kim Yasuda and Marcos Novak illuminates pathways from campus into Isla Vista

UC Santa Barbara Staff

a new light installation being designed expressly for the occasion. Inspired by UCSB art professor Kim Yasuda, the interdisciplinary endeavor was created and designed by Yasuda and Marcos Novak of the Media Arts and Technology program, and sponsored by UCSB’s Academic Senate, among others.

Starting in mid-May, the installation, “Hesperus is Phosphorus: Light Passages,” will feature solar-powered lights illuminating the trees and populating the grass verges along the main campus walkway to Isla Vista. A motion-activated lighting system will illuminate the Pardall tunnel. Envisioned as a series of art exhibits, the light galleries created through this project are meant to become permanent features of the campus.

- See more at: http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/015399/we-are-all-ucsb#sthash.fTMIcYAc.dp…

A light installation inspired by UCSB art professor Kim Yasuda is now illuminating pathways from the UCSB campus into Isla Vista as part of the campus memorial marking the one-year anniversary of the Isla Vista tragedy. The interdisciplinary endeavor was created and designed by Yasuda and Marcos Novak of the Media Arts and Technology program, and sponsored by UCSB’s Academic Senate, among others.

The campus installation, designed by Novak, features solar-powered LED lights illuminating the trees and populating the grass along the main campus walkway to Isla Vista. A motion-activated lighting system illuminates the Pardall tunnel. Envisioned as a series of art exhibits, the light galleries created through this project are meant to become permanent features of the campus.

The title for the overall piece is “Hesperus is Phosphorus,” referencing the Greek morning and evening star being one and the same. The light tunnel is named “Uguisukangei," a Japanese reference to the nightingale floor. The light gardens are named “Ikimin Aqiwo Spe’y” (Chumash for “New Star Flowers”). The last portion is called “Aloha ʻĀina,” which literally means "love of the land," a central idea of ancient Hawaiian thought, cosmology and culture.

The lights in Pardall Tunnel serve as a figurative and literal bridge into Isla Vista, where local residents and businesses are being encouraged to blue tea lights in their homes, residence hall and apartment windows; change porch light bulbs and install LED rope lighting to outline buildings and storefronts around the central downtown loop in Isla Vista, resulting in a trail of blue lights along Pardall, Embarcadero del Mar and Embarcadero del Norte. The effort in total, known as BLUNITE IV, is a community endeavor to reflect solidarity through light. It will culminate with the artistic illumination of the I.V. Love and Remembrance Garden and a public sculpture created by art students in collaboration with artists from Bamboo DNA.

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