Parallel Strata [2018 - 2024]

Kinetic light and sound sculpture, a composition for 5 towering machines
Nicky Assmann & Joris Strijbos

'Parallel Strata', a kinetic light and sound installation by Nicky Assmann and Joris Strijbos, consists of an audiovisual composition for multiple towering kinetic light sculptures. It is based on the concept of rotating stroboscopic light and shadowplay, connected to the position of the spectator. The shadowplay emerges from the rotating lights and stroboscopic effects, unveiling a parallel strata. Assmann and Strijbos focus on combining these techniques in a linear or circular spatial composition for the five machines resulting in mechanically moving creatures of light and sound through which the audience can wander.

The collaborative works of Rotterdam-based artists Assmann and Strijbos are the result of empirical, ongoing research in the fields of kinetic art, expanded cinema, and experiments in perception.
In their installation series such as Moiré Studies, Fading Shadows and 'Parallel Strata', they develop multi-sensory machines that invoke visual distortion and play with the senses through kinetic light sculptures. Their work emphasizes synaesthetic relationships between light, sound, space, time, and motion. Acting as instruments for light and sound compositions, these pieces can be seen as a form of visual music and expanded cinema, experimenting with different elements of the cinematic apparatus. Assmann and Strijbos construct their own light projectors and screens from diverse materials, creating scores for light, sound, and kinetic sequences. These abstract cinematic interventions evolve through time and space, directly influencing the senses.

“The separate elements resemble beacons, windmills, cranes or big, moving lamps. They could be artificial birds. Strijbos’s work has developed from models to monumental compositions, more than ‘life-sized’ robots in conversation with the landscape. […] And this gives rise to a specific poetic language, to his own style. Joris Strijbos makes landscapes of robots that move collectively and conduct a dialogue with one another. The movements in this landscape looks as though it’s steered by a hidden intelligence, a process that is related to life itself. The composition of identical elements, the austerity in the design, the lack of colour all call to mind the work of the Zero movement of the 1960s. There too colour played almost no role in comparison to the material, the repetition, the light and shadow. Installations, paintings and sculptures, stationary in time, with the only possible change coming from changing light.”

The immaterial and intangible character of light, colour and motion forms the starting point of Nicky Assmann's work and is inspired by the sun, expanded cinema and science fiction. Her kinetic light sclptures are dealing with natural and optical phenomena, in the context of visual music and expanded cinema. She is fascinated with the concept of the perpetual mobile connected to different cycles.

*quote from the essay “Joris Strijbos’s installations: How to realize artificial life without individual will” by Michael van Hoogenhuyze, Leiden, October 2015

Credits:

'Parallel Strata' is inspired by the art of ZERO and commissioned by the ZERO Foundation, Düsseldorf for 60 years of ZERO in 2018.
The 2024 iteration is co-produced by Llum Barcelona.

Concept & score for light and sound: Joris Strijbos, Nicky Assmann
Realization: Joris Strijbos, Nicky Assmann, Spectro Productions

When sensitive to flickering lights, please be advised that this installation contains stroboscopic effects!