We are Luzinterruptus, an anonymous collective working in public space for more than fifteen years.<\/p>\n
\u00abLight is our tool, and the night is our canvas\u00bb.<\/p>\n
We do not use light to dazzle or to create purely visual spectacles, but to tell stories that matter to us and to encourage critical thinking, or at least conversation. To do so, we illuminate from within objects, with the intention of transforming the everyday, the useless and the discarded, and of making visible what often goes unnoticed.<\/p>\n
Our way of working is also a way of thinking. The philosophy behind each project is almost as important to us as the final result. Like Thomas Aquinas, we believe it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, to share what has been thought through rather than remain in contemplation.<\/p>\n
We work in an artisanal way, using simple materials and accessible processes. We choose simplicity over technological display, and dedication over efficiency.
That is why we see ourselves more as artisans than as artists, with all the difficulties this entails in a world where speed and efficiency, what is easy and safe, what is big and spectacular, what is immediate and easily reproducible, tend to prevail.<\/p>\n
We understand public space as a place where people can be without having to pay, and for this reason everything we do is freely accessible: sometimes we enjoy turning streets into luminous libraries, walls into spaces for free expression, squares into labyrinths to get lost in, fa\u00e7ades into showcases of stained glass made from waste, urban voids into clotheslines, and even the sky into a perfect place to contemplate a full moon (made of plastic) 365 days a year.<\/p>\n
We work in a collaborative and open way. In each project we seek active participation, whether during the creation process or through the evolution of the piece once installed.
Sometimes we ask people to donate objects they no longer use or consider waste, integrating them into the work and giving them new value through light. On other occasions, we invite the public to take home what we have intervened once the exhibition has ended.
All of this is part of our attempt to work in a more responsible and sustainable way.<\/p>\n
We work both in large festivals and in actions closer to the street and to a guerrilla spirit. In all cases, public space is at the core of our practice: a shared territory in which to explore other ways of looking, using and sharing.<\/p>\n
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Background<\/strong><\/p>\n In order to understand our present, it is important that we briefly tell you about the road we have traveled to get here.<\/p>\n We started in Madrid, hand in hand with other urban artists, during the economic crisis of 2008. In the midst of widespread dissatisfaction and with ideas to share, many of us took to the streets to leave protest messages. It was the only space where you could do something without censorship, although you risked a large fine if you were caught.<\/p>\n The common action in the public space had an unwritten rule: to make interventions that were understandable to everyone, that aroused curiosity and generated public debate.<\/p>\n We would go out with backpacks full of low-cost materials with which to leave luminous messages that would surprise passersby.<\/p>\n The idea was to highlight problems we observed in the city, which often went unnoticed. We were inspired by urban life, the use of public space, inhospitable environments, nature, social demands and politics. Poetically, we said we used light as a raw material and night as a canvas.<\/p>\n And why did we choose light for our demands? Well, because in addition to a great visual impact, it allowed us to make ephemeral interventions without damaging the environment.<\/p>\n Trash, recycling, simple materials and autonomous lights made up our luminous universe.<\/p>\n Fifteen years later, we are still trying to preserve that street spirit and sometimes we get together in Madrid to go out and leave our lights on, in the hope that others will turn them off for us.<\/p>\n Illuminating the unilluminable<\/strong><\/p>\n When we talk about light installations, our mind tends to visualize exquisite works in museums, and lately, one also imagines monumental pieces appearing in the street in the context of some important event.<\/p>\n We have discovered in light a versatile and easy-to-install element, a convenient and affordable tool that allows us to work freely, sometimes in small formats and sometimes in massive pieces.<\/p>\n From this revelation, we have focused our creativity on lighting almost everything that has come our way.<\/p>\n We illuminate the unilluminable, we like to think of our work. We are motivated by the quality that light has of giving new life and transforming modest, everyday elements or even rubbish into extraordinary ones, which, thanks to its magic, are transformed, presenting themselves to the public with a surprising appearance that immediately captures the attention and is almost suggestive. This makes it easier for us to use them to send messages of protest without being too uncomfortable.<\/p>\n With the premise \u00abMinimum investment, maximum effectiveness\u00bb we have given light to such bizarre objects as sanitary towels, brooms, syringes, chicken packaging, shopping bags, kitchen towels, sex dolls, beer glasses, flags, chips, churros, overalls, paper boats, bird cages, newspapers, banknotes, tree leaves, smoke, scaffolding and a few more absurd things.<\/p>\n And in our large installations we have also started from insignificant and discarded objects. Plastic bottles, advertising bags, forgotten books, white sheets of paper, condoms or work clothes have become highly valued materials, with which we fill buildings, occupy squares, pave streets, animate public furniture and inhabit aquatic spaces all over the world.<\/p>\n And so we go on, trying to discover modest treasures that deserve to be illuminated, with which to attract the audience to tell them gently and with a certain sense of humour, important and serious things.<\/p>\n Guerrilla<\/strong><\/p>\n Over the years our work has evolved and become more extensive, but we have always wanted to maintain the guerrilla and independent spirit that has given meaning to everything we are now and surely what we will be in the future.<\/p>\n To carry out these actions, we chose Madrid, a city we know perfectly, and in which we feel comfortable.<\/p>\n We act quickly at night. We usually set up and leave to observe how the piece evolves with the interaction of passers-by. At the end of the night there is usually not much material left as all the lights have been taken away, so we pick up the remains and go home.<\/p>\n It’s all tremendously ephemeral, illegal and of course without any pretensions other than to invite debate in the public space.<\/p>\n With this strategy, we have intervened in public spaces of great relevance in Madrid. The busier and more popular the place is, the more it motivates us.<\/p>\n Commissioned works<\/strong><\/p>\n Thanks to our guerrilla actions we started to be called to participate in artistic events, which gave us the opportunity to create more eye-catching pieces, with new materials and in which we didn’t need to hide.<\/p>\n Urban art festivals, events in public spaces and above all in rural environments were our beginnings in the world of lighting work.<\/p>\n We started to travel and we realized that we had to look for more global themes that were easily understandable and that at the same time allowed us to continue to send out our messages of protest. Thus, recycling, lack of communication in cities, traffic, lack of green spaces, over-consumption, especially of plastics, became our recurring themes.<\/p>\n Later we have had the opportunity to participate in large festivals and events with considerable budgets, which has allowed us to become more professional and develop a more or less stable career as an artistic collective.<\/p>\n In the last 5 years we have made a qualitative and quantitative leap and we are still trying to learn how to manage bureaucratic, budgetary, logistical, emotional, high expectations and even higher uncertainties.<\/p>\n And sometimes we feel we are part of an inverted pyramid, in which we are alone at the bottom, holding ever larger and heavier upper floors. But hey, we seem to maintain our balance with a certain dignity, and we have a lot of things to compensate for it.<\/p>\n Philosophy<\/strong><\/p>\n We have a kind of decalogue of intentions that we try to respect as much as possible.<\/p>\n Volunteers<\/strong><\/p>\n We cannot fail to mention our collaboration with volunteers, which we try to promote in all our work.<\/p>\n They, with their disinterested contribution, are the ones who make it possible for our larger pieces to materialize.<\/p>\n We like to say that Luzinterruptus is all of us.<\/p>\n We share a lot of time with them and from there an affective interaction arises. And we are always surprised to find people in the group who are so involved in the project that they are able to take the controls and organize the work.<\/p>\n We spend about a week on the collective assemblies, spending more than 8 hours a day together. More than 40 people usually join us in the workshops.<\/p>\n It is they, after all, who provide us with the ideal working environment to work on such laborious pieces.<\/p>\n Materials management<\/strong><\/p>\n Another of the great challenges we have to face in order to carry out most of our projects is to obtain waste or recycled material with which to build the pieces.<\/p>\n We are finding it more and more difficult to get hold of it, and we like to think that it is now recycled more and better.<\/p>\n To achieve this, we collaborate with organizations that are involved in the collection of materials from local businesses and recycling plants. Of course, we also ask citizens to donate what they don’t use.<\/p>\n All this is achieved thanks to the involvement of the organizations that invite us, because depending on their willingness it is more or less difficult for us to access the local recycling system.<\/p>\n In the end everything is returned to us, clean and ready to be turned into new recycled objects.<\/p>\n Citizen participation<\/strong><\/p>\n As we have already said, all our work is designed for people to actively enjoy it, and in this sense, we try to involve citizens in most of the processes of creation and exhibition of the pieces.<\/p>\n As well as asking them to donate their waste to us, we invite them to creatively intervene the used material that we then illuminate. We also let them do so once it has been installed.<\/p>\n Crazy things have been, for example, convincing people to lend us objects with sentimental value that we put in cages and incorporate into the installation. We have also asked for plants, fabrics, plastic containers and more. We returned it, of course.<\/p>\n And all to give visitors an immersive experience in the real world.<\/p>\n If you want to know more about us, you can visit us in our website<\/a> you can also see projects<\/a> that we have not yet carried out and you can find us at Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also find us on the street, with our lights on.<\/p>\n\n