Light from the installation, The Return, shining through the shrubs and bushes under the night sky just down the road from the residency house and outside Pou de la Riba.
The site specific installation made from modified screens reflects light at night time and is powered by a 12V battery that charges during day time from two attached solar panels. Katrin wants her work to be understood as a poetic cycle of collecting and returning energy, of a give and take and a day-time-night-time conversation between the sun and the screens. The work creates a conversation started off by sunlight that gets answered by projected light at night. The work plays with this poetic relationship between the sun and the modified laptop screens.
The work’s simplicity and DIY aesthetic reminds of the precarious environment we live in that is momentarily suspended in a safety promising beam of light, before the darkness takes back what was borrowed.
The temporary installation is made from thirty modified screens, two solar panels, a solar charge controller and a 12V battery. The components are installed on soil, held up by twigs and covered by rocks.
The installation had occasional visitors: a few moths here and there drawn to the light, yet the nights were still too cold for most insects. The light sources are modified laptop screens — reclaimed broken LED screens — made to refunction. Mad Max and other dystopian movies feed into Katrin’s thought process.
The installation is set between almond farms and truffle fields. Not every house, especially further up the mountains, has mains electricity. Most remote dwellings, including the residency house and workshop, are off-grid and help themselves with solar systems.
An overhead mains electricity cable illuminated by the solar powered light installation.
All photos courtesy and copyright of the artist.
