Lightwork for garage 2001-2005

About this artwork.

Please note: the garage is only accessible with a parking ticket.

Parking garages often evoke an uncanny atmosphere. The garage under the Ossenmarkt is dealing with this negative image. In 2005, it was even awarded the Parkeergarage Project Prijs; an award for, among other things, the best-equipped and architecturally most beautiful car park in the Netherlands. The garage gained even more allure with the creation of the lighting work by P. Struycken.
 
Twenty light boxes have been constructed for this work, which are placed on the floor of the garage. These lights in constantly changing colours illuminate the 14.5-metre-high concrete structure that forms the core of the garage. 
 
The principle of colour changes is based on light colour mixing of red, green and blue light. The colour changes occur by making the lights shine infinitely stronger or less strongly when mixed. 
 
P. Struycken describes the operation as follows. “On the basis of those colour changes, a palette was mixed with 16 colours lying on a colour circle. The intervals between the 16 colour tones (green-yellow, yellow, orange, red etc.) are visually the same. The colours give the same saturation impression and, except in colour tone, only range in brightness from dark (violet) via red to light (yellow) and back again to dark via blue-green. Thanks to the infinitely variable mixing of the successive colours on the circle, the number of colour tones used in the work is practically limitless. In different tempos, the blends are done left or right in the colour circle so that the colours change faster or slower in a non-repeating sequence. The continuous transition, the highest speed of which is adapted to the speed at which cars drive around the void, does not have a disorienting effect on the driver.”
 
Behind this dynamic lighting work is an ingenious software and control program that the artist developed in collaboration with the company EuroGenie. 
 
P. Struycken gained fame with his stamp on which he portrayed Queen Beatrix in coloured dots, and with his colour scheme for the rooms of the Groninger Museum.

Facts & Figures.

• Design
  P. Struycken

• District
  Centrum

• Year of creation
  2005

• Art type
  Art in / on a building, Light artwork, New media

• Material
  Computer controlled LED light