ETC fixtures light Janet Echelman’s latest art installation ‘Earthtime 1.78 Vienna’

Award-winning artist and Harvard lecturer Janet Echelman’s latest art installation ‘Earthtime 1.78 Vienna’, has allocated 20 SolaFrame 3000 fixtures to light the spectacle.

The installation, which features a transparent sculpture made of blue/red fishing nets, takes place until October 10 2021 at the MuseumsQuartier Wien in Vienna, Austria. Echelman is known for her gigantic net sculptures and combines ancient crafts with original computer design software to create works of art. With her series of sculptures in ‘Earthtime’, she wants to raise awareness of the connection with one another and with our physical planet, using strong colors and soft curves to highlight this. The magic of her work in this installation unfolds further in the evening through clever illumination.

Curator Klaus Krobath comments on the use of light in her work: “Light is a significant element in the work of Janet Echelman and in the staging of her installations of art. The degree of lighting, the color of light and the change from light to dark influences the environment and the people looking at her sculptures."

“Due to the transparent material and the fishnet-like structure, the light intensity plays an important role so that the light is visibly reflected, and the nets can be perceived as floating bodies of light. The angle of the beam of light and its direction must therefore be precisely matched to the mesh sculpture," says Krobath.

Austrian lighting designer Andreas Ryba was entrusted with the lighting design for “Earthtime 1.78 Vienna”. “We have prepared ourselves long and hard for this project,” says Ryba, the head of Vienna-based company A. Ryba Multimedia Lichttechnik. “The artist doesn't want any hard edges, so we have to be very careful with the use of light and of course make sure we choose the most suitable lighting systems."

With this in mind, only ETC products were the answer for Ryba, specifically the High End Systems SolaFrame 3000 moving lights. Ryba already had extremely positive experiences with the SolaFrame 1500 which he has used frequently in the past and recognized that he needed even more powerful light output for this art installation. “We decided on the bigger brother of the SolaFrame 1500 and selected the SolaFrame 3000 with high fidelity engine. I think this is the best choice for ‘Earthtime’. "

The light output of 25,000 lumens, a color rendering index (CRI) of 96, the linear color mixing system and the DMX networking capabilities were all convincing arguments to choose SolaFrame 3000 fixtures. As the installation takes place outdoors, Ryba mentions another great feature of the automated LED fixture which is the anti-fogging lens system. “This gives us additional security for this time of year. After all, weather conditions should not affect this extraordinary performance. "

A total of 20 SolaFrame 3000s have been provided by HELi Showequipment for the large-scale, floating installation which runs from 10 September – 10 October 2021.

About Janet Echelman

The light artist from Tampa, Florida, studied visual arts at New York's Bard College and taught at Harvard University. In 2011, the multi-award-winning artist – having received an honorary doctorate from Tufts University and the "Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award" in Visual Arts – also spoke at a TED conference. Her monumental, fluid fishnet sculptures interact in urban space with wind, water and sunlight and manage without massive building materials. Her work aims to make clear that all people are connected to one another and to the earth.

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