S+T+ARTS in the City | Artists-in-Residence
Adrien Lucca | Parallel Worlds

+ About Parallel Worlds

In the burgeoning field of transdisciplinary studies, particularly at the intersection of arts, technology and environmental science, the issue of light pollution represents a critical challenge for urban ecosystems. This project examines the impact of artificial lightning, specifically LEDs, on the colour rendition of natural objects, such as flowers and plants, and how these light sources affect nocturnal wildlife.

During his residency at GLUON, Adrien Lucca explored how the spectrum of artificial lights, designed primarily around human visual characteristics, potentially degrades visual experiences for other species, taking the hawkmoth – an insect known to pollinate at night and to have an extremely performant colour vision at night – as an exemplary case. This inquiry culminated in the development of a large-scale spherical light sculpture that does not disturb the visual system of the hawkmoth and at the same time illuminates its surroundings for humans. This light installation serves as a prototype for the development of new urban light schemes.

“This proposal very nicely makes the link between Adrien’s own developed LED technology and its application in art. The philosophical narrative behind the objectives is very relevant and will hopefully induce critical reflections with the spectator.”

Pollinating insects can see wavelengths of light that humans do not, revealing to them a world of colors and patterns hidden from us. The reverse is also true: humans see colors that the insects do not. The construction of the urban and natural worlds is predetermined by the visual interactions of life forms with their environment. As humans and artists choose the materials that color their environment, the pollinating insects have chosen the pigments of flower through 200 million years of co-evolution. What humans interpret as “natural” and see with colors determined by their own visual organs may well be “artificial” from the point of view of insects and flowers. How can we, as human beings, learn to see and appreciate these parallel worlds that exist around us? Could we perceive with our eyes what other species see? Can we pave the way towards a use of light in public spaces that welcomes non-human life instead of disturbing it? Through the use of different wavelengths of light it is possible to change the color of certain plant pigments and to reveal to our vision hidden structures, giving the awareness that humans are surrounded by invisible realms. While speculation about parallel universes often relies on concepts from quantum physics, Einstein’s relativity, or other mathematical theories to imagine other unobservable universes, this project proposes an approach rooted in our own world through light and vision. This proposal therefore explores parallel worlds that already exist here and now: worlds within our world.

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+ Artist

Since 2009, Adrien Lucca develops a multidisciplinary body of work around color and light that questions our perception of the physical world. In search of practical means of action to set up aesthetic experiences, he has set up a research and production laboratory where he conceives his works in an autonomous way at the intersection of art and science. To the antipodes of a sad passion for the normalization and the technicization of our relations to the physical world, Lucca believes that one can highlight the strangeness of the link between the physical world and our perception of it by appropriating scientific and technological ressources. His most recent work aims at redefining the very concept of “color”. Adrien Lucca (born in 1983 in Paris) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

More Info

+ Video Statement

+ Credits

Concept and production: Adrien Lucca
Commissioned by GLUON within the framework of S+T+ARTS In the City with the support of Innoviris, National Lottery and the Brussels-Capital Region.
A special thanks to our Local Expert Group: Bas Van Heur (VUB Brussels), Thomas Merckx (VUB brussels), Elenea Sorokina, Karol De Decker (National Lottery) and Kourosch Abbaspour Tehrani (Innoviris).

This project has been developed in the context of the S+T+ARTS in the City project. S+T+ARTS in the City has received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No. LC-01984766.

S+T+ARTS in the City is funded by the European Union under grant agreement LC-01984766 under the STARTS – Science, Technology and Arts initiative of DG CNECT. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or DG CNECT. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.