A spectacular sound and light experience is transforming Bath Abbey this month. Emma Clegg talks to Peter Walker of Luxmuralis about how visitors will be enveloped by dynamic light projections and original musical compositions.
The technology we use is the equivalent to having a paintbrush and a canvas. It’s as simple as that”, explains sculptor and artist Peter Walker. Luxmuralis’s latest project is certainly as close as you might ever get to wielding a paintbrush on the architecture of Bath Abbey. That’s because it’s not paint, but light that’s the medium of choice.
Luxmuralis create immersive fine art, light and sound installations based on the idea of Son and Lumière. It all started in 2016, when Peter had the opportunity to develop a project in Litchfield Cathedral, called Before Action, to commemorate the Battle of the Somme. “I was given the whole interior of the cathedral. So we developed what became the first work of Luxmuralis inside the cathedral, a walking tour where you could sit and take in the whole building – it was one of the first ever in the world on that scale.”
Peter works on Luxmuralis projects with his friend and composer David Harper. “I create the visual art through different software programmes and that will then go to David, who designs the music to fit it around the thematic approach that I’m looking for.”
The use of animated lights in displays and performance is nowadays often highly slick and commercialised. Luxmuralis projects, however, keep close artistic control. “It’s just the two of us and we’ve always remained pure as fine artists. We create an ‘artwork’, which then we develop and present within these beautiful buildings. The technology using high-quality projectors is there just to allow us to bring that to life within the building.”
The collaboration between the two artists is like a symbiosis, says Peter. “Because we know each other so well, the music and the visuals flow beautifully together. When you come and see the work, it is as if you are walking into a painting, a painting that’s moving and articulating around different styles and chapters.”
The project in Bath, Shine On, is specially designed for the Abbey, with nearly all the elements within the light artwork drawn from the Abbey’s collections, using images of the stained glass, the windows and its precious manuscripts.
“This technique of using existing elements tunes into what these buildings have been for years, places where paintings, music and stained glass has been presented. We just adapt it so that it fits to a modern sensibility. We like to say ‘we create the stained glass windows of our time’. By this we mean we’re bringing stories to life with light and colour in just the way that ecclesiastical windows used to do. This use of energetic, visual storytelling makes it really, really engaging, but is also really accessible.”
The naves of cathedrals and churches before the Protestant Reformation rarely had permanent seats, Peter points out. “They were meeting places, areas where people would come to exchange stories and to meet communities.” In Bath Abbey the more static format with fixed pews in the nave was reinvented in its recent Footprint renovations, opening up the nave as a freer performance space and for displaying artwork. “This now gives the opportunity to introduce beautiful, large-scale installations in these sacred spaces, including content that references people’s daily lives. The technology allows people to cross the threshold and come into these buildings, seeing them not just as fixed points in history but as living, breathing buildings.”
As a sculptor it is second nature for Peter to imagine the experience within three-dimensional spaces. “Once I’ve been in a building, I can imagine that space, and provide David with a visual version of the work which is understandable to him. He will then score that music, almost in the same way you would score a film, because his music is really filmic. He also works to convey the sense of emotion that we feel within the space. The music helps us to create an additional depth because the audio and the visuals run all the way down the building, and as you walk towards it, it feels as if you are walking through life.”
Shine On – Luxmuralis is at Bath Abbey from 4–26 October. Book your time slot here: bathboxoffice.org.uk. projectionartgallery.com