Occupying institutional space with light: The Illuminator

2018-10-31T16:29:00-04:00

Enter the Illuminator, a New York-based art activist collective, whose shifting membership has mastered the legal grey zone that regulates projection in public. [...] the Illuminator takes the normally stationary technology out of the classroom and onto the streets, affixing a high-powered, 12,000-lumens projector atop a van — or, when special nimbleness is required, a trolley — to ignite urban façades with political statements that are as bold as they are temporary.

Image: The Illuminator Collective.

For this recent Urban Omnibus feature, digital media scholar Eli Horwatt interviews art-activist collective The Illuminator. Since capturing the public attention with their Occupy-inspired 99% Bat Signal projection in 2011, the collective has been, quite literally, making headlines with large-scale interventions on institutional facades such as the "We’re all sitting ducks" slogan beamed on the outside of the United Nations building during a Nuclear Non-Proliferation conference in 2015 as well as smaller installations like the Edward Snowden hologram.

Image: The Illuminator Collective.

"When we project directly onto the facade of an institution whose policies and actions we stand against, we know that we are working within a set of constraints that require precise planning and rapid adaptability. We know that if they become aware of our actions, institutions will work quickly to remove any type of critical messaging from association with their buildi...

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Occupying institutional space with light: The Illuminator