Borrowed Light

»The sunset is arguably the most elaborately photographed natural phenomenon. It is also one of the most frequently reproduced visuals shared online. The artist collective Troika is interested in our collective tendency to freeze and frame this perpetually fleeting moment. Exposing a scroll of Duraclear film to RGB-light, the artists created a continuous sunrise ‘Borrowed Light’ (2018) – or sunset – mimicking our timeless pursuit to control nature by means of technology. The film strips are cut up, boxed and put on display like samples in a petri dish. Seen in profile the colours disappear, demonstrating that form and perspective fundamentally shape our understanding of the world. A loop of film, suspended on scrolls, references the optical effect of the ‘moving panorama’: a theatre prop used in melodramatic plays to create the illusion of a moving backdrop – the predecessor of motion pictures. The nineteenth-century technology presented the landscape as leisurely entertainment, much like watching the sunset on our holiday.«

– Hinde Haest, Curator FOAM