This article is about Lightmark in relation to Luminary.  Where to begin?  Well, art reflects the face of it’s creator(s).  Art can reveal a lot about the character and sensibilities of the artists that create it. Now, maybe I have a skewed view, but the light painting images I see often seem to be heavily imbued with the nature of their creators. 

I keep returning to the idea of the immediate impact really good light painting pictures have on people.  I have shown the artists we are covering in Luminary to literally dozens and dozens of people in the last few months and the reactions are all within “1-3%” (a standard percentage of error) of each other.  The reactions are wonder…amazement etc….

I have paid close attention to this because I wanted a good idea of how broad the appeal of light painting is…or what the “audience” thinks about this stuff.  If I got luke warm responses all the time I’d reconsider making this movie.  But lukewarm is the polar opposite of what I’ve seen.  There is a strong physical as well as emotional reaction to these pictures.  When I show an image I pay careful attention to the person as they view the image.  The physical responses are all surprisingly similar.  People often seem immediately rooted to their spot, their eyes widen a bit, they bend at the waist to get a closer look and they stare intently at the image literally transfixed.  It happens over and over again.  The other reaction I see is rushing to the screen to get a super close look at the image…..a reaction of disbelief.

I usually then go on explaining the basics, no photoshop/a performance etc…, while people ramble on in a flurry of descriptive words as they struggle to comprehend, appreciate and quantify what they are seeing.  In the descriptions and questions people formulate you can usually tell how media, photography, art savvy they are and also what emotional state the specific image has put them into.

What the hell does this have to do with Lightmark specifically?  Lightmark’s images are a delicate balance of human presence and natural environment.  Lightmark’s art represents a careful consideration of time, place and what our presence means to a natural space.  They integrate themselves and their art images so succinctly into their environment that the weight of the natural location is significant both physically and conceptually…. Theirs is not an imprint as much as it is an integration and blending and reaction.  Sure, it is a “mark” but it is one that always works within a sophisticated relation between artist and location. 

I say sophisticated because in their “less is  more” approach we get to revel in the location.  We are directed as viewers to focus on the integration of the light object rather than simply it’s presence and coolness.  It’s like Jens and Cenci are inviting us to share in their travels and destinations.  Their “lightmarks” are not flags planted in an imperialistic gesture of dominion, but rather, a gift of appreciation, recognition, and respect for the environment. 

Personally I like to see approaching and finding environmental locations as a period of “charging”….a period of energizing.  The artists flood themselves with sensations along the way and those complex, bio-chemical processes mystically combine to manifest a creative expression. 

Almost 15 years ago now Che and I took a bicycle tour in Spain.  We landed in Madrid and rode from Madrid to Barcelona camping each night.  I have vivid memories.  I think those memories are so strong because we were in a heightened state.  We were doing a challenging physical action that released endorphins, we were in a foreign land, a foreign landscape, and literally responsible for our survival in situations where we would not see people for extended periods of time.  We didn’t have cell phones we had each other and the experience…the process.  We were VERY far outside of our comfort zone…we were in uncharted physical/mental/emotional territory defining new boundaries for ourselves. 

The point is that when we are in that state of being our minds/bodies are engaged in a complex process that as humans we are able to re-contextualize into an expression that embodies intangible emotional states into gestural images.  That is where we get close to the magic of being human.  The fact that we make intuitive leaps, we use emotion to gain insight, we combine several “concepts” together to create an abstract representation of things we cannot really verbalize.  There is much written about the incapability of language to express the spiritual, the esoteric, emotion. 

Lightmark consistently manifest light gestures that represent states of being, the process that got them to that state, and the amazing environments that they are energized from interacting with.  We feel the power of the environment.  We see through their eyes what they see after days of trekking across a tundra.  We see all of these things in the frame that devoid of any lightmark is already a masterpiece.  I somehow get an almost physical feeling of the spaces Lightmark captures.  Immersion is a word for it.  Transportation is another word for it….I feel like I’m breathing the rare air they are.  I sense the space in each image, I feel the texture of the air and hear echoes of what I imagine the sound scape to be…and it’s powerful.

That’s just related to the actual image of the environment before the addition of a “lightmark”.  With a series of super simple motions Jens and Cenci add their subtle, interactive expressions and all of a sudden my experience increase geometrically.  It’s what that simple mark represents that makes it such a powerful vessel for emotional content.  I am carrying an image around in my head these days….It’s an image of Aboriginal Handprints. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=aboriginal%20hand%20print A simple representation of something so incredibly powerful….our humanity, our history, our passage and presence.  We have always had the desire to leave a mark.  We have been leaving marks large and small since literally before history. 

For me and for Luminary Lightmark represents a mental and emotional state of being more than anything else.  Do I care about a simple long exposure parlor trick of drawing a line?  Not in and of itself, no.  I care about how that line came to exist.  I care about the “real” magic moments.  Those moments are not really the one’s we sometimes intuitively assume.  The act of drawing the line(s) is not the the “real” magic moment I don’t think.  The real magic is what’s happening before the journey starts…what’s happening when the decision to leave is made…what’s happening when the bag is being packed…what’s happening when they get up at 4AM to take pictures.  All of those are the magic moments that are what these marks represent.  When I deconstruct the images and process I work my way back to these moments and think…”this is the mustard seed”….whatever is going through the mind of the artists when they take each step along the way.  When the idea of making lightmark pictures consciously directs their actions days, weeks, months before the images are made then I think those thoughts are where some truth lies.

What do I mean exactly?  Our daily choices and actions represent what we are thinking and who we are.   If we want to know how some people make such timeless and evocative art then the answer is NOT in the technical explanation of how the lightmark is drawn or what F-stop it’s at.  The answer lies in what the preceding series of thoughts and actions of the artist are.

In the extreme times and locations in which Lightmark works the atmosphere is alive and expressive and therefore I know that Jens and Cenci are equally alive, energetic and active.  I hope Luminary is able to find a way inside their minds and returns with some movie magic.