Solar Lab

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The Solar Lab is an artistic exper­i­ment­a­tion space born out of a re-eval­u­ation of our use of tech­no­lo­gies and the signi­fic­ant resources they require. Joanie Lemer­cier and Juli­ette Bibasse open up the black boxes of the tech­no­lo­gical objects they have been using for years to directly integ­rate the power of sunlight. For this first public present­a­tion, along­side media docu­ment­ing their research and shar­ing their vision they unveil a series of proto­types. These include a solar screen, vari­ous versions of helio­stats, and a modi­fied micro­com­puter, all created from vari­ous repur­posed elements.

A well-ordered commit­ment begins with oneself. The Solar Lab is an open but situ­ated project, origin­at­ing from an artistic studio with a unique prac­tice and strong values. The found­ing team of the Solar Lab sculpts light in space, and designs projec­tions on uncon­ven­tional, often three-dimen­sional surfaces, and, more recently, on living media such as water mist or vegetal surfaces. Light is used to go beyond percep­tion and reveal the matrix of biophys­ical phenom­ena, their archi­tec­ture, or their vital­ity. This visual explor­a­tion of the forces govern­ing our ecosys­tems is accom­pan­ied by activ­ism and a partic­u­lar atten­tion to the consequences of using tech­no­lo­gical devices, espe­cially their ecolo­gical and energy foot­prints.

The Solar Lab, a bril­liant space dedic­ated to the design and shar­ing of light devices (such as beam­ers and screens) powered directly by the sun’s rays, without convert­ing them into elec­trons, was born out of these convic­tions. Its exper­i­ments concern both light in space and work tools such as modi­fied computers and screens, as well as devices for redir­ect­ing sunlight. They also start from the intrinsic char­ac­ter­ist­ics of this star of immense vigour that one would not dare to repro­duce arti­fi­cially: by work­ing with its rays, the Solar Lab harnesses extreme power, even though these rays do not always reach us and have vari­able intens­ity. There­fore, it is a matter of compos­ing with this inter­mit­tence.