Guy
Marsden
 

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home > Electronic Artwork > "Yin & Yang"

Guy Marsden

"Yin & Yang"
completed 5/18/93
12.25" X 12.25" X 2"
(pedestal or wall mountable)

Yin + Yang - Guy Marsden

This artwork contains a grid of 16 X 16 bicolor LEDs.  Each LED can light up red or green and when they overlap they light amber.  The red LED moves frenetically, while the green is slower paced.  The persistence of vision of the human eye gives the illusion that there are more than one red or green lamps lit at a time, in fact only one is lit but they move so rapidly that one perceives several at a time in tight clusters.  The movement is completely random and reminds one of watching flies buzzing around a window.

The title refers to the 2 energies -- the Red Yang represents the principles of maleness, the sun, creation, heat, light, Heaven, dominance, and and thus is frenetic and red hot.  While the Green Yin represents the principles of femaleness, completion, cold, darkness, submission, so thus is calm and sedate.  And so they dance...

Technically, the electronics make use of the drunkard's walk theory of randomness.  Each LED can move in a randomly selected direction of up, down, left, or right.  If it hits the edge it "wraps around" to the opposite side.  I designed electronics that generate pure electrical (white) noise, then the movement circuits sample the noise in order to choose a direction.  The circuitry is all on a black and silver circuit board that has non functional embellishments in the solder layer that can be seen on closer inspection.


Yin + Yang - Detail

This piece is normally exhibited wall mounted.

See a Quicktime movie of the artwork in action:
Yin&YangFull2.MOV


If you want to learn more about the history or technical details of LEDs I recommend 
a visit to the LED Museum!

This work is available for $950.00


EXHIBITION HISTORY:

1/94 - 3/94 “Theater Of Light and Motion” 
City of Brea Municipal Gallery, CA
3/94 - 5/94 Luminous Visions Gallery (now closed), Carmel, CA
11/94 - 6/95 "Action Experimental Art"
Holmes Fine Art Gallery, San Jose, CA
3/20/03 - 7/6/03 "info@blah: Overload and Organization"
The Mills Gallery of the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA.
1/7/05 - 2/25/05 "Light in the Dark"
SPACE Gallery, Portland, Maine

See my résumé
- includes exhibitions, sales, comissions, reviews, publications

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