Andrea Galvani
Monday, 23 January 2012
Work from Higgs Ocean.
“The Higgs Ocean series documents a unique project staged off the coast of the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Circle. It required the collaboration of a research institute, two scientists and a crew of 16 people, and was born out of four months of study and preparation with a group of New York-based Russian engineers. Over the course of the 2,800 km sail, the artist used two photovoltaic panels to collect and store the natural energy of the limited daily sunlight. He used the accumulated energy to power a flashlight capable of projecting a beam of light over 100,000 ANSI lumens strong. The beam cracked through the Arctic landscape like a bolt of lightning and pierced through the Earth’s atmosphere; within a few minutes, the luminescent memory of the artist’s journey had been returned to the universe. Each photograph in the series records a singular moment in this transfer of energy; they are only simulacra of a process that continues—segments of an infinite vector.” – Andrea Galvani