As a light artist, Mark van Cromvoirt creates artistic optical designs to enhance the visual experience of light and its source. He explores the behaviour and properties of light, including interactions with matter and the human perception of it. His work is characterised by direct and natural interaction between light and vision, without any use of programming or mechanics to achieve motion in light artworks.
Optical interaction
Mark strives for comprehensive light artworks which demonstrate the fundamentals of light and the relation of our sense to perceive it. This combination of light and vision contains possibilities to create pure and analog interaction without the interference of programmed electronics. This principle is the starting point for the projects described as ‘optical interactive’, such as ‘Pulse’, ‘Morphosis’, ‘Nimbus’ and ‘XY’. These works can as well be determined as optical illusions.
‘Primal’ light art
The sun is the most important natural light source for life. Besides the functions of the light itself, the sun´s position also provides information about time and orientation. In modern society these values are barely (directly) used anymore, whether it’s by sun-blocking buildings or it has been replaced by more precise tools. To remain connected to nature in a digitized society, Mark explores new ways to implement sunlight’s values in our surroundings which he calls ´Primal Light Art´.
Sundial Series
One of those projects is a series of innovative sundials in which one shows different cycles of time in color codes, another sundial with a time notation as an analog clock and one with a digital one.
Artificial Sun
The project ‘Lyshus’ is an artificial sun which simulates three features of the sun: a daily suncurve, the seasonal sun path and a sense of the sun’s size and distance from earth. ‘Lyshus’ Is meant for places where the view to the sun is blocked by buildings or places with the fewest hours of sunshine.