Sunstar
2018
1 spectro-heliostats, scheduling software, control computer
Sunstar is a large-scale interactive solar installation in the landscape that makes the solar spectrum visible as a brilliantly clear light on the horizon, just at the meeting point of earth and sky.
Most people take the sun for granted and are not aware of it as a luminous star.
“Subsequent to a three-month NASA, ACE, Leonardo Network Artist’s Residency at the Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, I began a collaboration with astrophysicist John Vallerga to use the sun to define the horizon with constantly changing star-like points of coloured light. In order to achieve this, we designed a mobile array of prisms that follows the path of the Sun, a Spectro-heliostat, that is precisely controlled by our original software. Our Spectro-heliostat reflects and disperses sunlight, creating a broad rainbow that can be accurately beamed to different locations. Distant observers see a daytime star, programmed to change colour in a continually varying performance.” – Liliane Lijn
