m0za1que
mosaique = mosaic
0-1 = binary numbers

kinetic light installation
project by LAb[au]
2009

about:
m0za1que
(Mosaique is the French spelling for mosaic)

Conceived for the "Centre de la Ceramique" at Limoges, France, the competition proposal for a permanent installation follows LAb[au]'s precepts of generative processes actuating lights and kinetics, which in this case is related to the behavior of ceramic square tiles. This seemingly flat tiled wall in the entrance hall of the building plays with surface properties, light and shadows, and bi-state positions. White diffusing ceramic tiles pop out by just a few centimeters while the attached solenoid is energized. As the flat surface is embossed by actuated tiles, the uniform and even white light is interrupted, projecting shadows, outlining the patterns formed by the binary state logic of the generative algorithm.

The resulting mosaic can be compared to the electro-magnetic functioning of a memory slot in computation logics. The-so called 'place holder', having here the size of the matrix of tiles, can be filled with binary data and where this magnetic action leads in the installation also to physical motion. Information emerges not only out of the binary state but out of the relative position of the tile in the matrix. What in terms of computer logics is referred to as sequential data becomes here spatial data.

When no data activates a tile, the rigorous absolutely white surface is nothing but emptiness: zero is flat and white or pure light. When tiles are activated shadows outline their sharp-edged square shape, one is dark or no light. This transposition of the operating modes of the installation to the binary logic of computer memory is the origin of the project name 'm0za1que'. In this manner the installation gives the inherent computation logics a proper esthetic both on the level of its physical realisation and on its kinetic behavior.

This manifestation of the constituting parameters of the media used in the design of the installation is also present in its illumination conception. There is more information to extract from shadows and dark outlining of the tiles than just the absence of light. In front of the wall an array of LED rails is mounted on the ceiling to project white light over the wall combining its primary colours; red green and blue. The distant positioning of the 3 colored light sources leads to a white illumination of the titles while remaining in their zero position but on activation the change of their position interrupts one or two of the RGB light beams which leads to colored instead of black shadows on their outlines. This play on the colored shows is nothing more than the decomposition of light into its basic units complementing the installation's initial intentions.

As a regular subdivision of the matrix, a square tile defines the unit by which it can be measured. Height by width is the spatial constructor which corresponds to the temporary memory quantity in computer logics that can be updated to reveal information. The generative process by which the displayed pattern evolves is the "game of life", a simple mathematical simulation of life and evolution in which "cells" live or die following principally rules of vicinity: a process which spatially fits the wall matrix coherently.