Conflux Festival 2024 – “Symbiotic Realities”

At the heart of the Conflux Festival 2024 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, lies an exploration of the intricate connections between art, music, and human sensory perception, reflecting this year’s theme, “Symbiotic Realities.” Over the course of four days, the festival’s performance program invites artists to investigate how sound and light shape our experience of reality and interact with our bodies and minds. The program is a dynamic fusion of cutting-edge sound performances, live audiovisual acts, and expanded cinema projects by internationally acclaimed artists, transforming a variety of unique locations across Rotterdam. In this particular portfolio post, we explore the work of Zalán Szakács, including an installation of light and kinetic 3D printed optics as provided by Luximprint. 

The Project: Conflux Festival 2024

The Conflux Festival 2024 began with a free concert at Plein 1940 into new sensory realms, inviting the audience to experience how art can create new forms of interaction between humans, technology, and the environment. The other days of the festival, it moved into Brutus, where the raw and industrial space served as a backdrop for performances that merge the image and sound, exploring how technology can both amplify and transform human perception. The program culminated at WORM, within an intimate setting the festival aims to immerse audiences in a deep, sensory dialogue that blurs the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, the digital and the physical.

Capture of 3D printed lenses for kinetic LICHTSPIEL installation Zalán Szakács. Image courtesy of LUXIMPRINT.

The Solution: A Performance of Art

The performance is part of an ongoing artistic research project series where the Rotterdam-based artist, Zalán Szakács explores historical early-cinema light projections, integrating them with a site-sensitive approach to architectural spaces. In ‘Lichtspiel’ (Experiment No. 6), Szakács used the refraction of light through kinetically controlled lenses to transform the Plein 1940 into a mesmerizing display of light and color whilst interacting with the architectural features of the outdoor square.

“Abstract Images Emerge through the Interplay of Light and Kinetic 3D Printed Optics”

In this particular work, the projector and a laser were used as a light source to project light, not images. Abstract images emerge through the interplay of light and kinetic 3D printed optics. This work builds on the principles from the 1646 book Ars magna lucis et umbrae (The Great Art of Light and Shadow) by Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher, who coined the term ‘ars anaclastica’ to describe the refraction of light through different materials. The use of various projectors and RGB-lasers generated a compelling play of refracted light, projected on the facade of the Maritiem Museum and reflecting onto the facades of nearby buildings.

Unique Benefits

A blend of projected laser light, beamer projections and advanced optical 3D printing technology leads to several unique benefits for all parties involved:

DESIGN:
Enabling Design Software: Custom design software enables the generation of complex geometrical textures and lenses;
Easy Design Variations: Various lens textures were generated for printing ‘on the go’;

PROCESS:
One-off Fabrication: rapid digital fabrication of three custom lens items (“one-offs”) in limited quantities (2 of each version), with zero need for minimum order quantities (MOQ = 1);
Prototype Variations: the various lens items 3D printed in one job enable a fast and cost-effective production of tailormade lenses for the festival;
Rapid Manufacture: the custom optics were produced in a matter of days, with zero need for post-processing, providing significant advances over conventional lens-making methodologies;

COOPERATIVE:
Product Integration: Exploring new horizons and application fields with a blend of light art and architecture by combining various fields of the profession: light and sound, art and architecture.

Credits:
‘Lichtspiel’ was created by Zalán Szakács in collaboration with Teresa Winter (sound score), Nick Mansveld (technical production and design), Frank Kessler (scientific advisor), and Doina Kraal (artistic advisor).