Lighting and visual innovators Painting with Light were approached to design a special
feature for the current “Black To The Future’ art exhibition, which is being organised
by art collective Het Labo and staged at the C-MINE cultural centre in Genk, Belgium.
The environment is a redeveloped coal mine, once the pulse of the local industry, now
tastefully restored and again serving the community meaningfully as a cultural centre
and creative hub for media and tech-related companies and the LUCA School of Arts.
The Het Labo logo is a lighthouse, therefore, Luc Peumans and his Painting with Light
team, who decided to imagine a “real’ lighthouse utilising a high-powered beam
luminaire and one of the two former mine head elevator shafts that still dominate the
C-MINE site.
A Vari*Lite VL6000 Beam was chosen to deliver the power and projection needed to
make the installation impressively high-impact.
The luminaire was specified by Luc and is positioned on top of the tallest of the two
mine heads, 63 metres in the air. The fixture was supplied by Belgian Vari*Lite
distributor Face, who were very happy to partner with Painting with Light for the
project.
The beacon-like VL6K Beam is perfect for the application and can be seen for many
miles around on a clear night, adding interest, attracting people to visit the expo – and
prompting numerous chats via social media channels.
The luminaire has a large 14′ front aperture and utilises an exclusive new Philips
ellipsoid reflector array system to produce a unique retro style searchlight effect with
a tight, intense, high-output collimated shaft of light at 6.5 degrees.
As well as needing to be bright and punchy, the light had to be easily portable enough
for two people to carry all the way up the access stairs and secure it at the top of the
mine shaft.
The project is being managed for Painting with Light by Wouter Verhulst.
The VL6000 was programmed by Painting with Light’s Jeroen Opsteyn using a
grandMA2 Wing, and the show is played back each night by an ELC showSTORE
controller that automatically activates the lighthouse beam at 22h00, and turns it off
again at 02h00.
The “Black To The Future’ exhibition runs for the whole of July, featuring the work of
over 100 international artists from different disciplines.
The metaphorical connections between the exhibition theme, the colour black, and the
coal mining heritage of the area has brought an extra resonance to the project, and
the Painting with Light team are very pleased to be working on another art related
project.
“Art is an inspiring creative area, and we love working on projects like this, where our
specific field of art can be used to highlight, combine, contrast and be symbiotic with
other forms and media,’ commented Luc. He added, “It is an amazing experience to
see the mine shaft being energised in this contemporary context.’
The project follows on from Painting with Light’s work at this year’s Venice Biennale,
where Luc has created a lighting scheme for “Protected Paradise’, a striking, 12-metre
high, mixed media installation created by Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen.
