SUMMERHALL PUBLIC SPACE ARTWORK
BIO
Lana Enix is an artist based in Scotland working in new media, sculpture, and immersive installation art.
By employing cutting-edge materials and technologies, she seeks to reach new, more poignant expressions of the timeless, inexhaustible themes and to explore the complexities of human experience characteristic of contemporary reality.
Enix integrates primal forces of nature with advanced technology, aiming to explore and evoke feelings of eternity and transcendence through her work.
Over the past year, Enix was awarded a grant by Immersive Arts UK, undertook a residency at Cove Park in Scotland, and was shortlisted for ArtEvol at the Saatchi Gallery in London. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art. Previously, Enix was commissioned to create a room-sized immersive installation for the ‘You…’ exhibition at the Reid Gallery, where it was shown alongside works by professors of the Glasgow School of Art.
Artist website and CV:
PROPOSAL
The work is a metamorphic digital animation on a vertical, 100” LED screen. It is inspired by Scottish nature, ranging from the almost neon colours of its flora to the shape-shifting, wild weather. Positioned in the foyer of the vital performance space at Summerhall, the work reflects on how nature’s character feeds into the energy of people who come into contact with it.
The generative work unfolds through a process that draws heavily on fractals present in nature and our bodies, gradually developing from simple to highly complex forms, using itself to build layers and detail. The technology-driven artwork mimics a model of a natural process and adopts nature’s hue range and organic form – it becomes a synthesis of the artificial and the natural, producing a substance that is more than the sum of its parts, with pulsating colour and form expressing new emotions emerging today. The work is influenced by Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman, which argues that “the posthuman condition expresses the convergence of the technological and the biological in unprecedented ways […] Matter is vibrant, self-organizing and not opposed to the technological; posthuman materialism embraces artificiality…organic and inorganic forces intersect in the production of life.”
Please note that the video below is a sketch and not the work itself.
Please select 4K quality when viewing.
The 100” 4K LED screen is approx. 2.2 metres tall and is mounted on a wall. The vertical screen is positioned so that its rectangular plane matches the doorways on both sides in height and proportion.
Regarding practical considerations, I can confirm that I have identified a precise model of a high-quality 100” LED screen that is within the materials budget. If wall installation is not possible, the screen can be installed on a freestanding mount and positioned close to a wall without touching it.
PREVIOUS WORKS
AXIS ON FIRE
The pillar of light is one’s own axis outside of oneself.
The formation of light and energy in the work is the vibrant core in one’s own world.
It’s what one holds and sees as light.
kinetic fire sculpture, hologram, tripling projection, room-sized immersive installation
Device 1 100 x 50 x 30 cm
Device 2 187 x 110 x 30 cm
biofuel, recycled turntable, fire-retardant mica, swivel, copper, steel
When the kinetic sculpture is spinning, the surrounding air containing oxygen is caught in its metal mesh, and together with the spiral wing seizing the air, they fuel the rise of a pillar of fire inside the sculpture. The hologram is made from undistorted recordings of the kinetic device in darkness, where the fast spinning of the metal mesh causes it to become transparent, revealing the pillar of fire within.
The kinetic fire sculpture is constructed according to a meticulous Health&Safety consideration, has many in-built precautions and is accompanied by a Risk assessment document. link: Risk Assessment
The device 2 is designed slightly taller than a person, to create one's own light larger than oneself.
FORMATION
recycled acrylic, human teeth, 100 x 30 x 30 cm
The sculpture is made from a cutting-edge recycled acrylic material produced in a factory, where a chipping machine breaks down disused acrylic objects into shards, which are then lightly melted together through chemical fusion to form new objects. The sculpture, made from a reprocessed human-engineered material and interspersed with human teeth, becomes a kind of future fossil of the Anthropocene.
Through its complexity, the work mirrors the intricate workings of the human psyche. The crystallizations embody elaborate and interconnected mental and emotional formations that are as organic as they are mystical, unique, and unpredictable.
FROM WITHIN: A SCULPTURE SERIES
The series of sculptures is created from within – by a chemical explosion in the composition of industrial cast clear acrylic. Made from this transparent, durable material, the From Within sculptures embody the ethereal and eternal inner realm of human energy.
THE TECHNIQUE
The work is created at a factory where liquid acrylic undergoes a standard curing process – a chemical reaction. The process is adjusted by the artist in a subtle way, causing the chemical reaction to progress into a chemical explosion. The work is formed by the behaviour of the composition of industrial acrylic itself, with no added chemicals. This technique was invented by the artist. As the acrylic solidifies, a sphere, formed by the explosion, is captured.
ENERGY
The sculptures created from within themselves metaphorically embody the process of energy originating inside a person and generating thought and feeling that lead to action – realizing the same creation from the inside outwards. Translucent and ethereal, the sculptures incarnate the immaterial yet critical sphere of inner human activity. These explosions captured in a long-lasting material symbolize the eternal, mystical, and powerful nature of the domain within us.
NATURAL
Acrylic, for better or for worse, is a phenomenal material with no equivalent in the natural world due to its engineering at the very level of chemical structure, which is what makes it so strangely malleable and durable. It is a product of human intervention at the deepest possible level. The sculptures, made using the same process and material employed in everyday structures and objects – adjusted only slightly by the artist – exemplify how a subtle shift can provoke an explosion, uncovering a potent property inherent in this human-engineered matter, which had previously lain dormant.
Created from within, each sculpture embodies conception and germination. Furthermore, certain works in the series take on highly organic forms, with some visually resembling botanical formations or bodily organs such as a heart or an embryo. These qualities suggest a feeling of new life being conceived, albeit through artificial means. The work can therefore be seen as a result of human engineering that pushes boundaries of the ‘natural’, striving to transcend and enrich our perception of ‘nature’.
SUSTAINABILITY
The work was created without any added chemicals, using only the native chemical composition of industrial acrylic. Through this project, the artist explores in depth the existing chemical technology used in manufacturing. The sculpture series is made from acrylic that is recyclable by the same factory that produced it. Notably, From Within I was created from an accidental chemical explosion defect in one of the factory’s products. In discussions with the factory, the artist learned that such explosions occasionally occur during industrial manufacturing. With the factory's help, the artist conducted research and a series of experiments, identifying the exact cause of these explosions. Knowing the cause should help the factory minimize the occurrence of such defects and material waste, while also allowing the artist to create works using this technique. The artwork series, made in acrylic, in its jewel-like detail and beauty, encourages treating acrylic as something unique and precious, rather than expendable and disposable. For thousands of years, art has been made from the most long-lasting materials available, as it was created to capture the eternal themes and beauty, and to continue to inspire across centuries. The From Within series, which explores the deeply universal, timeless themes and is made from long-lasting acrylic, highlights the idea that such material should be used thoughtfully and selectively — for objects that are meant to endure, such as a work of art.
When watching the video, please select the 4K quality.