Geometries of light : representing James Turrell's artworks

The lecture deals with the complex nature of James Turrell’s artistic work: it’s based on a synchronous and innovative use of Geometry, sensory perception and Art, capable of inducing altered states in the viewer’s perception of space and time. The team Imago rerum at IUAV University of Venice has taken about 10 years a collaboration with the American artist to create interactive digital clones of his light works. The purpose is to study in vitro the unique characteristics of his works, in particular his famous and mysterious land-formed work, the Roden Crater Project. The lecture explained, by such operating methods, how the Venetian team worked, using the state-of-the-art digital modeling and chrome-luministic simulations to recreate the core of Turrell’s works. The essay ends with a presentation of Roden Crater project’s interactive clone for which it was designed a model of the celestial vault.