SciArt Magazine - All Issues December 2015 | Page 30
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Erika Blumenfeld is a transdisciplinary artist whose work is concerned with the wonder of natural phenomena and
our relationship to the natural environment. Approaching her work like an ecological archivist, she has chronicled a
range of subjects including the cycles of solar and lunar light, bioluminescent marine organisms, the fragile prismatic
landscape of Antarctica, climate disruption induced wildfires, and the cultural significance of the natural night sky.
To make her work, Blumenfeld collaborates with scientists and research institutions such as the Scripps Institution for Oceanography, the McDonald Observatory, the South African National Antarctic Program, and NASA.
Blumenfeld is the recipient of several fellowships including the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Smithsonian Artist
Research Fellowship, and has shown nationally and internationally at TATE Modern (London), Foundation EDF
Espace Electra (Paris), and Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo).
Visit Blumenfeld’s website at:
http://www.erikablumenfeld.com/
Top: Light Recording: Greatest Lunar
Apogee/Perigee of 2004 (exhibition 2006).
15 panels, each 55” x 20”. Chromogenic prints,
aluminum panels, lamination film.
Installation view: RULE, Denver, Colorado.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Photo-based installation in which Blumenfeld
documented the phenomenon of light without a
camera by exposing photographic film directly
to light itself through special handmade recording devices. Light Recording: Greatest Apogee/
Perigee of 2004 documented the greatest Lunar
New Moon Apogee and Full Moon Perigee—the
time during the moon’s imperfect elliptical rotation around the earth when the moon is at its
closest and its farthest away from the earth over
consecutive new and full moons, respectively.
This piece recorded the amount of moonlight
during each of the 15 nights between the year’s
most extreme apogee/perigee cycle, which occurred in June of 2004.
Bottom: 2475 Full Moons (2009/2015).
2475 prints each 4.25” x 5.25”. Pigment prints,
Harman by Hahnemühle Matt Cotton Smooth
300gsm paper, L-pins. Installation view:
Zhulong Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 2015. Image
courtesy of the artist.
This work is comprised of 2475 prints of a single
Light Recording that documented a full moon in
Antarctica on 09 February 2009 and is printed
in both its positive and negative counterparts.
The piece conceptually acts like a calendar of
the 2475 full moons that have and will occur
between the years 1900 and 2100 as a way of
marking the 200-year scientific conversation
about anthropogenic climate disruption, which
began with the first scientific paper published in
1896 and which now projects 2100 as the time
of dire consequences for our world. 1900 to 1957
(the period of theoretical scientific modeling)
is represented by the positive exposure (black
with white center) prints and the prints from
1958 onward (at which point theories were
confirmed with actual data collection) are represented by the negative exposure (white with
black center).
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SciArt in America December 2015