ABANDON NORMAL DEVICES PT.1 DAAN ROOSEGAARDE ~

ABANDON NORMAL DEVICES // CASTELTON//

DAAN ROOSEGAARDE - WATERLICHT

'Waterlicht' - Winnats Pass, Castleton, 23rd Sept 2017 

'Set in the dramatic v-shaped valley of Winnats Pass that acts as a gateway into Castleton and the Hope Valley, WATERLICHT will virtually flood Winnats Pass with light and smoke to reveal the geological formations of the site and its history as a valley once submerged under a tropical sea.'

 - Abandon Normal Devices 2017

Daan Roosegaarde's 'Waterlicht' (or 'Waterlight' as translated from it's Dutch origins) attempted to reveal to audiences en masse a historical context to the Winnats Pass Valley of the Peak District. The light show created with LED technology and lenses presents us with the reality of sea levels without human intervention.

It's clear this piece has an aesthetic value that attracted the thousands of visitors to the site. Roosegaarde transformed the landscape not only with technology, but by drawing in crowds he also converted the provincial, quiet town of Castleton into something akin to a Metropolis.

Roosegaarde is an innovator renowned for pieces that "...illuminate the intersection of technology, humanity and our urban environments." 'Waterlicht' framed the suburban surroundings, a refreshing location, which re-purposes Roosegaarde's innovations in the sedate rural environment. As an artist Roosegaarde has a particular aesthetic that transforms the urban landscape into alluring, celestial light shows, activated by the same human intervention that he attempts to highlight as a dilemma that affects the environment.

"With his futuristic artworks, Daan Roosegaarde illuminates the intersection of technology, humanity and our urban environments." - TED

Evidently Roosegaarde is an innovator for our future, an environmentalist, who seemingly combines multiple activism roles in his practice. Audience activation and activism for the planet. With 'Waterlicht' in mind in particular, the impact on the environment is relatively small, here he stays true to his objectives of designing a cleaner planet. In his TED talks appearance, Roosegaarde lists a few of his company's 'innovations'. A clever 'smog machine' being one of these; a sculptural mechanism for large cities that filters smog from the atmosphere, releasing cleansed air back into the environment.

A smog vacuum cleaner and other magical city designs | Daan Roosegaarde - TED Talks

"Daan Roosegaarde uses technology and creative thinking to produce imaginative, earth-friendly designs. He presents his latest projects -- from a bike path in Eindhoven, where he reinterpreted "The Starry Night" to get people thinking about green energy, to Beijing, where he developed a smog vacuum cleaner to purify the air in local parks, to a dance floor that generates electricity to power a DJ booth. " - TED

The sculptural qualities of this 'smog machine' and 'Waterlicht' not only alter our surroundings to improve our quality of life and draw attention to our increasingly toxic presence on our planet. They bring culture to a public realm. Broadening the following of arts in some of the world's most significant places. 

AMY FOSTER 2017