Lux Aqua Pura A Site-Specific Installation
Lux Aqua Pura is a month-long site-specific video installation, created
by Marianna Haniger, to be presented in the Water Tower at Seattle's
Volunteer Park. The exhibit begins on October 30 with an artist's
reception from 4pm to 6pm and runs through November 22. 911
Media Arts Center is producing the project and a Seattle Arts Commission
Diverse Works grant along with a King County Arts Commission Special
Projects grant are providing funds.
Lux Aqua Pura will honor one of the Northwest's most precious natural
resources: water. The inscription "Aqua Pura" is carved in stone over
the doorway of the two entrance/exits to the Water Tower. A 95 foot high
concentric brick building, the Water Tower is one of the oldest water
storage structures in Seattle and holds a 880,00 gallon steel water tank
still providing water to the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The exhibition
will add light to the tower, hence the title Lux Aqua Pura.
The instillation is digitally collected, played back, and projected.
Digital video projectors hanging from the structural trusses project a
digital waterfall onto the turn of the century water tower. The Tower's
standpipe contains water that has traveled down stream from the Cedar
River Watershed in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
Two separate stairwells wind their way to the observation level, between
the brick facade and steel tank, forming a double helix. The stairs are
dimly lit and are painted white, the optimal surface for projecting
video. Lux Aqua Pura will consist of two video installations, one in
each stairwell.
On the North Stairwell, video footage of flowing water is projected on
the stairs from the structural trusses above. The viewer's body
interrupts the water fall, casting a shadow onto the stairs. Sounds from
the waterfall emanate from speakers reverberating throughout the
stairwell. The South Stairwell is an audio installation with two hundred
miniature transistor radio speakers mounted underneath the stairs. The
laughter of children ricochets from speaker to speaker working its way
up and down the stairwell.
Haniger often ponders the relationship of cyber space to the natural
world. Although fascinated by technological advances, she is both
repelled and questions their use, purpose and ultimately their
consumptive effect on our dwindling resources. She sees Lux Aqua Pura as
a metaphor for the way in which nature will be experienced in the
future.
Besides orchestrating the installation, Haniger has also constructed a
tied-in website to offer a Virtual Reality-type experience for those
outside Seattle but on-line. The Lux Aqua Pura website will allow
audiences from around the world to visit the Tower and take a virtual
tour of the exhibition. After the exhibition has ended, the website will
continue to be on-line for several months.
Someday, we may have real-time Virtual Reality vistas of forests in our
living rooms, where we can observe nature without penetration, wandering
through the glacial blue rooms of the hyper real. For now, we have Lux
Aqua Pura.
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