Coloratura

Translucency, reflection and transparency are characteristics of the new Uppsala Konsert Kongress building. These keywords have been taken on board by artist Katarina Löfström who has not only used them but also intensified them with her integrated work Coloratura.

Comprising an interactive light piece created by more than 400 lights placed along the entire row of windows on floor 6, the artwork functions like a heart valve that helps pump out and visualise the body of the building’s activities to the rest of the city outside. Inside the building, microphones are deployed in the concert halls, picking up the sound currently generated in the building and transmitting it via a computer programme that turns the lights on and off causing shifts in the light to occur. In the evening and at night, the light piece can be seen throughout Uppsala city. The light shifts slowly and contemplatively, it is volatile but constant, pulsating and rhythmic. Coloratura both reflects, mirrors and visualises the sound through the light.

The new work is characteristic of Löfström’s art, which is frequently expressed in video installations. Often, the films depart from a sunset, a crowd of people, a light or sound phenomenon. The material is abstracted or carefully blurred. When projected, an entire new focus emerges – meditative and highly sublime. Here, there is no classic narrative with an end or a beginning, instead an extended momentum where specific patterns and structures move continuously and repetitively. They form a fascinating continuity in which time and movement are transformed into irrelevant structures. The works nudge the borders of our perception and our awareness of the eternal and inexhaustible, like the universe itself in Pythagorean harmony. It may not come as a surprise that one of the sources of inspiration for Coloratura is a captivating natural celestial phenomenon: the northern lights.

Power Ekroth