Friday

Aliki Polydor | "Take it or leave it" ©2006-2016 | LED sensorial installation -


My “take it or leave it”  LED lighting interactive project, could be best translated as "immediatezza o rinuncia”©2006

An overview
Today the senses are weakened and lacerated because technology and progress make all processes dramatically explicit. Senses are neutralized and lose their capacity to discriminate.We need to reflect on that…and maybe work on ourselves.
I designed and set up this interactive polisensorial installation in a church. Upon entering the church, you are immersed immediately and find yourself viewing a court metrage by Ruben Garbellini called Breve Sogno projected onto the Choir. The reason why I decided to project the film on the crucifix,was because I meant to involve "Christ" in our worldly tormented life as well as in the life of the protagonists in the film. I specifically chose John Adams'The Grand Pianola Music as the background soundtrack, with its syncopated rhythm to emphasise the dramatic context of our lives today, and that of the film's protagonists, in particular. I purposely added a pink filter on the film projection in order to focus on life's duality "la vie en rose" on the one hand, and the contrasting theme of the plot which is sad. My intention was to emphasise that, despite life’s solicitation, every individual can dream of some "vie en rose"! With the film's soundtrack muted, the spectator is directly exposed to the feature film's dramatic tone which is distinctly attenuated by the pink filter simulating “la vie en rose”.
Another visual impact comes immediately from the soft white wall that surrounds the choir thus creating an added sense of privacy and at the same time records the feeling of a confessional zone. I wanted to draw attention on that instant of expectation, meditation that precedes confession. A momentous "alone with oneself and one’s thoughts". The intention was to provoke moments of reflection on the part of the visitor without any kind of technological interference.
The atmosphere of the church left semi-dark emphasizing the mesopic aspect, with dimmed LED lighting. The visitor proceeds to find out what is behind the white (RGB LED lit) wall. There, behind that wall, an experience awaits to be lived.

The moment the visitor sets foot on the purposely-designed platform, the LED lights embedded in the platform light up and trigger a dialogue on the provided headphones.
In this dialogue a man and a woman simulate intimacy although they have only just met... At the end of their three-minute conversation we find out that they have met each other only twenty minutes ago… –Aliki Polydor | copyright 2006

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Every time a new participant steps on that platform, all the senses awaken: from the visual (dimmed LED-lights), olfactory (real clover scent diffused through a remote controlled compressed air system), to the tactile and auditory (dialogue between the man and the woman)In this sensorium- - the consumed senses-represented by five straps of skin-like textures—mask partially the view of the real world of relationships, that of the protagonists in the film of which the spectator hears the authentic dialogue this time while watching the same extracts privately within the soft wall confessional, and so it goes…
Aliki Polydor©2006

Aliki Polydor | Sensorial LED light installation 2006 - "Take it or leave it" - Church of San pietro in Archivolto - Piazza Duomo - Verona


A polisensorial interactive experience

To be wrapped up in a film, to fall into it with the help of poly-sensorial, tactile, and olfactory stimuli, as well as those of sound and sight: this is the effect of the installation Take It or Leave It by Aliki Polydor, a designer and an artist with a complex cultural background - basically Iranian and Russian but with French, English, and North American influences. The installation was inaugurated on Friday November 3rd, with a presentation by Marco Ongaro, and will be open to the public from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. until Sunday in the Church of San Pietro in Archivolto, next door to the Cathedral, Piazza Duomo in Verona.
Aliki, who has lived in Verona for some time now, had already made her mark with gripping environments full of colour, lights, and odours in which we could enjoy particularly inventive and intense experiences. Her language has even become more complex and sophisticated, more abstract, full of temporal shifts and able to capture profoundly whoever is willing to experience what the artist offers.Take It or Leave©2006 -2016 by Aliki Polydor alludes to the dichotomy between immediacy, which is continually forced on us by a society used to having everything automated or remote-controlled, and the ever rarer ability to say no. Rejection/Renunciation has a meaning that is both positive and negative Aliki explains:
Today, we always want to be satisfied straight away, immediately: something that is at times impossible. Our senses are violated, they suffer and are in pieces; we no longer know how to distinguish, discern, discriminate and give ourselves the time to choose, accept, or even to say no. The force of renunciation vanishes and, as a result, we are weakened.
And this is why Aliki asks us to take a minute on her LED-illuminated platform and undergo, individually, immersed in the flow of John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music, an experience that starts from our bare feet to arrive at our nose, our eyes, (the sequence of images derive from a short film by Ruben Garbellini), our ears - not forgetting the fundamental tactile experience with the caressing lacerated soft resin hanging in front of the platform- and finally, our heart.
Camilla Bertoni
translated by Michael Haggerty

Sunday

Aliki Polydor | a sensorial LED experiment




Chiesa di San Pietro in Archivolto, piazza Duomo, Verona

S’intitola “Take it or leave it”, prendere o lasciare, l’installazione ideata et realizzata dalla designer Aliki Polydor, che e di scena fino a domani a la chiesa di San Pietro in Archivolto a Verona. Questa “azione artistica” coinvolge gli spettatori e li constringe a confrontarsi sulle quello degli affetti.  Aliki, che e designer di formazione cosmopolita, nata a Teheran, vissuta a Parigi, ha studiato a New York, Londra e Sheffield, ha scelto Verona come patria d’elezione.
L’evento e cosi concepito: gli spettatori- individualmente, sono condotti ad una piattaforma a LED situata al centro della chiesa, dove ascoltano un dialogo  privato, mentre sull’abside vengono proiettate delle immagini. In sincronia con queste azioni, musica e profumi completate dalla luce a LED, si crea un’atmosfera che vorrebbe coinvolgere i sensi nella loro totalita.
Ruben Garbellini
Corriere della Sera-Corriere di Verona-11/2006