Thomas Wilfred "LIGHT AND THE ARTIST"

The idea of watching a "performance" of light, without an accompanying score of sounds or music seems quite ascetic --the pursuit of a purist. Thomas Wilfred is quite clear in his discussion about the emerging "eight art form", that to include music along with Lumia (the Art of Light) somehow distorts the work or misses the point completely. He does not believe that there is a scientific scale that links the frequencies of light to the frequencies of sound and therefor seems not to be interested in the endeavor. What he did seem to be interested in though, was developing a philosophy and goal through which to develop instruments and compositions of light.

Wilfred breaks down art into 3 essential components of form, color and motion. He believes that form and motion are the "two most important" contributors in the art and that a lumia artist is able to compose in black and white if they so choose. The aim for Thomas Wilfred's easthetic seems to be the illusion of a 3d space, projected on a 2d surface. I did not understand Wilfred's differentiation in the division of "Lumia's theoretical space-stage" as divided into a "FIRST FIELD: the visible section of space (screen surface), and SECOND FIELD: the remainder of space, not visible to the spectator" (pg. 254). Wilfred's life's wish to discover the artists that would bring lumia into it's full splendor is quite interesting. I am not sure the Art of Light has ever attained the status Wilfred so dearly envisioned for it.