The medium is the message.
OFF? is an installation composed of a home-structure in glass and aluminium, in which a 100 cm x 100 cm x 1.4 cm lightbox conceived for Amsterdam Light Festival has been set up. The habitat is the container for the artistic experience. The glass structure allows the people inside to be observed. The environment is equipped with motion sensors and a time connected to the lighting and to the lightbox. As the visitors enter one at a time, the habitat, in just a few, timed seconds, switches from on to of, creating the discomfort of darkness, after which the lightbox with the writing OFF? switches on.
The light is the message.
The objective of this artistic intervention is to make light, which requires a brief interval of abstaining from this medium in order to be able to appreciate its benefits of beauty and warmth. We are so used to light that we do not truly consider its importance unless we are deprived of it and in the dark – an unsettling state for many of us.
The visitor enters a bright environment and suddenly finds him/herself in the dark, as if in a blackout. The suspension of light stops time and the perception of space. Only when the lightbox is then switched on is order restored. The cosmos returns, provided that there is light. Of? How many people would like to be in the dark? The public can realize that the interrupted current was no accidental occurrence, but a conscious, voluntary act to make light and to safeguard it from improper consumption.