Since its inception in 2013, Dark Mofo has featured light and laser works by multiple international and local artists, to cut through the blackest winter nights. We’ve laid out this year’s brightest offerings, plus a history of the festival’s most spectacular light works.
Dark Mofo 2018
RYOJI IKEDA'S SPECTRA
Ryoji Ikeda’s spectra [tasmania] appeared at the first Dark Mofo in 2013. Now, on the winter solstice, join us in Mona’s grounds for its return: a towering pillar of powerful searchlights reaching high into the night sky. Evening ferries will shuttle you to and from the museum – book tickets closer to the festival. This temporary installation of spectra for Dark Mofo 2018 will soon be replaced by a permanent version on Mona’s Berriedale grounds.
21 — 24 June, from sunset to sunrise, Museum of Old and New Art
MATTHEW SCHREIBER: LEVIATHAN
A massive geometric sculpture wrought from lasers and light, from the visual artist who was James Turrell’s lighting expert for 13 years and works in the field of light, architectural space and holography.
15 — 17 June, 21 — 24 June, Dark Park
UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS: MUSICAL UNIVERSALIS (Australian exclusive)
United Visual Artists return to Dark Mofo to present Musical Universalis, a spatial instrument that uses kinetics and sculpture to explore the connections between light, harmony and order. Eight orbs turn and turn in a darkened warehouse, manifesting the harmonic patterns of faraway celestial bodies in our solar system.
15 — 17 June, 21 — 24 June, Dark Park
Previous years
IY_PROJECT 136.1 Hz - CHRIS LEVINE AND MARCO PERRY (2017)
Giant, technicolour, 10 kilometre-reaching lasers to transform the night sky, and create intersections that reflect the science of particle physics and sacred geometry. Canadian-born, UK-based laser art pioneer Chris Levine brings his spectacular iy_project 136.1 Hz to Hobart for the first time, with Bjork-collaborating spatial sound designer Marco Perry, produced by CPS (House of Mirrors).
ROBIN FOX LASERS FOR RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY: TRANSLIMINAL (2017)
Robin Fox is an Australian audio-visual artist, who specialises in laser works which synchronise sound and visual electricity. At Red Bull Music Academy’s industrial-scale transcendental rave, Transliminal, Robin Fox created disorientating atmospheric light installations to complement the immersive sounds delivered by house & techno pioneers.
OUR TIME - UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS (2016)
This London-based collective explores gravitation and electromagnetism with Our Time, suspending a grid of pendulums in a large warehouse space. Each pendulum is set into motion in unison but given the freedom to act individually, creating a system that oscillates between order and chaos.
As each pendulum passes its zero point, a light is triggered, creating complex patterns of light that sweep through the space, following the pendulum’s movement. A small speaker in each pendulum creates a spatial sound field which gives voice to the tension created between poles as they swing together and apart: a feedback loop creating a thunderous rumble as the pendulums travel through the air.
ANTHONY MCCALL: NIGHT SHIP + SOLID LIGHT WORKS (2015)
American avant-garde artist Anthony McCall was commissioned by Dark Mofo 2015 for two laser-lit works in Hobart:
Night Ship, which involved a 65ft Legend deep-sea shipping vessel, sailed along the River Derwent in the Port of Hobart each night, projecting strong pencil-slim light beams accompanied by the ship’s marine horn.
Solid Light Works was a cinematic sculptural laser installation in the mighty Sea Road Shed warehouse at Dark Mofo’s after-dark art park, Dark Park, at Macquarie Point. Light cones were manipulated, sending down conical sheets of light from the ceiling that traced abstract spaces in the vast blackness, with people of all ages moving and dancing through the beams.
RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER: ARTICULATED INTERSECT (2014)
Articulated Intersect produces an interactive canopy of spotlights visible over a 15-kilometre radius that creates personalised light sculptures that segment the sky. The public interacts with the lights using large lever-controllers, situated on the three sides of Sullivan’s Cove in Hobart, producing a total of six tetrahedra.
Head over to the Dark Mofo website for more details.
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