Text - enLIGHTen - an interactive projection installation by Lloyd Godman 1999 - © Lloyd Godman

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The installation consisted of six infrared activated projectors, 2 with green filters, 2 with red filters and 2 with blue filters; positioned to project across the gallery, through the suspended Bromeliad plants, and throw shadows onto the large (7.5m long x 3.5m high) tissue paper screens at each side. As the audience entered the darkened space of the gallery, they triggered infrared sensors which turned on various projectors for a set period of time before turning off again.

There was no designated sequence, with the projectors turning on and off in relationship to the number of people in the space, and their path through the gallery space. Of course where the shadow projections overlapped a complementary set of shadows was created in cyan, yellow and magenta. A seventh projector with no filter, which was also infrared-activated, was positioned to project light down the cent re of the gallery through the plants and cast shadows on the end wall. The plants had been specifically arranged so as the combined shadows create the cryptic letters LIGHT as a shadow on the screen. Critics described the work as an “enchanted forest of light”.