Artist Development

Shine

Shine - Light Up The North

Introduction

The SHINE programme aims to nurture and develop new talent, giving artists the opportunity to exhibit or perform new work at a number of Light Up The North festivals. Artists are selected through an open-call process and will typically be awarded bursaries of up to £10,000 to realise their new artwork. The artwork has to be suitable for outdoor winter light festivals, artistically challenging/interesting and of high quality, have a strong element of digital/technology within its design, and be resilient enough to withstand the winter weather at multiple festivals (October – December) and transportation across our festival network.

As well as financial support, each artist also receives a full induction to the programme, as well as training and mentoring from across the LUTN partnership. We work directly with commissioned artists to support their development, with guidance in areas such as marketing, finance, production, risk assessments and fundraising.

To be eligible to apply to the SHINE programme artists must be UK-based and perceived as an emerging talent (regardless of age) with the ability to achieve their ideas to a high quality. We specifically seek artists that involve digital technology in the making and outcome of their proposal.

Shine - Light Up The North

In 2023, various festivals are joining together to award funding to emerging artists working with light, to produce and exhibit new commissions at their 2023 light festivals.

The SHINE programme aims to nurture and develop new talent, giving artists the opportunity to exhibit or perform new work, in previous years exhibiting at Light Night Leeds, Light Up Lancaster, Lightwaves at Salford Quays and Lightpool in Blackpool.

Up to two artists or collectives will be awarded substantial commissions of up to £10K to realise ambitious new artworks.

Applications for SHINE 2023 are now closed

2022

Norman - SHINE

Lewis Sykes
Norman

Meet the interactive light and sound installation NORMAN – an old school ‘smart’ screen but with attitude.

The work is an artistic simulation of the behaviours you might encounter now from an ‘intelligent’ machine built to explore human-computer interaction as conceived in the late 1960s. NORMAN feels somewhat threatened and undermined by advances in modern technology – its questionable antics might be understood as the response of an ‘intelligent’ machine in crisis.

Butterflies - SHINE

Anne Bennet
Butterflies

Butterflies have different meanings to different people. ‘Butterfly Cluster’ by Anne Bennett is inspired by an open cluster of stars in Scorpius. The installation consists of over one thousand six hundred butterflies which appear to have landed in the vicinity.

Each butterfly has a unique pattern and is hand-made from an eco-friendly resin. The butterflies hold a secret: in the darkness, and under UV light, each shines brightly with a different design (not visible in the daylight). Anne intends that when people discover the artwork, they will enjoy spending time reflecting on the different meanings that butterflies convey.

2021

Entwined Light Antoniya Stoitsova and Nicolo Bencini

Antoniya Stoitsova & Nicolo Bencini
Entwined Light

Entwined Light is a multi-layered piece that unfolds throughout the day-night cycle. Variations in colour and illumination invite the visitors to take part in the story and revisit the installation at different stages throughout the cycle. Taking inspiration from bioluminescence in nature, the installation demonstrates alternative methods of generating light by utilising the inherent properties of photo-luminescent materials.

Digital Playground Little Lost Robot

Studio Little Lost Robot
Digital Playground

A walk-through forest installation of oversized robotic flowers. Reminding us all to take it slowly, breathe and play! As visitors move around, the sculpture will subtly change in mood and appearance. Not replacing nature, but representing our relationship with the environment and exploring possibilities of technological innovation to aid ecological sustainability. 

Flora Litchfield
Lasertonic

This immersive laser projection uses sound and colour to transforms its surroundings into a meditative environment. The colourful, undulating laser light dances in time with the surround sound, creating a serene environment to engage the subconscious mind and imagination. Come along and relax into a fluid sonic and visual journey.

2019

Shine - Portal of Reflection

Tom Lambert / Hologon
Portal of Reflection

A kaleidoscopic experience of wonder through animated light and sound. Gaze through special glasses into a portal to a world of colour and allow yourself to be transported to a place of self reflection, taking to moment to feel nourished and to appreciate the wonder of life, the universe and everything.

 

Shine Gemma Wood - Light Up The North

Gemma Wood
The Happiness Sum

The Happiness Sum is a playful, interactive installation that poses important questions about what activities make us happy …. and by how much! Beautiful and intriguing it encourages us to check if, in our fast-paced society, we are maximising our happiness potential.

Based on the ideas of 18th century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, the Happiness Sum is a fun way to compare and contrast different activities, our own and others to see which ones are getting the ‘high scorers’ and why?
Pharos - SHINE - LUTN

Joe Moran
Pharos

Pharos is a dynamic sculpture constructed from a series of lenses designed to absorb light then project it outwards in organic patterns that shift and pulsate as the sculpture rotates in a manner reminiscent of a lighthouse. Taking its name from the one the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the Pharos (Lighthouse) of Alexandria, this work pays homage to its spiritual ancestors through both form and function; casting hypnotic waves of light to illuminate the dark corners of its urban surroundings.

2018

Shine - Aura Ronan Devein

Ronan Devlin
Aura

A digital mirror reflecting audience motion and emotion.
The moving image work captures audience form and feelings with camera and biometric sense technology. Each participant’s movement and mood are relayed as a colour tone emitting body contour. The resulting radiant shapes, generated in real time, affect one another and are assimilated into the piece over time. The result is an emotional feedback loop between artwork and audience.

A new version of the work was developed for presentation on a 25m diameter water screen for 10 days at Winter Light Festival Canary Wharf, January 2019.

Barry Hale of Frequency Festival attended Winter Lights and has since offered me a show of a new artwork at their 2021 festival in Lincoln and possibly has potential to show Aura at an interim event in 2020.

I entered the work into several festival open calls with positive responses from Light Move Festival, Łódź, Poland and Light Nights, Gatchina, Russia. Both were interested but ultimately, LMF could not find a suitable location and LNG suffered a budget cut but are interested for 2020.

Andy Brydon (Curated Place) put out a call for Irish digital artists on Facebook. I sent him info about Aura and he is now showing it at Púca Festival, Trim Castle, Ireland from 31st October to 2nd November. The work will be projected at large scale onto the external castle walls (size tbc).

I was approached by a member of Kendal council during Light Up Lancaster who passed my details onto the Lakes Alive Festival team. They recently asked me to put together a production budget for showing there from 6-8th September. I am awaiting their response.

I travelled to Tokyo in July to participate in an academic symposium / workshop about emotional AI by invitation of project team member Prof. Andy McStay. I discussed and showed video of Aura. As a result of discussions there, Andy’s AHRC funding will contribute £3,000 to artwork r&d for myself and a team of programmers.

I am currently writing a funding proposal to make a new series of (scalable) emotion responsive paintings ‘Colour Field’ which will be derived from the development that went into Aura. I intend to submit an application to Arts Council England with Andy McStay (academic), Mark Linnane (coder) & Michael Flueckiger (coder) as team members and Frequency Festival Lincoln, Oriel Mostyn Wales & Streaming Museum USA as presentation partners.

Online digital art gallery Streaming Museum (USA) will feature my work (including Aura) on their site and have offered to partner in a potential exhibition in the USA.

Curator and Director of Oriel Mostyn Alfredo Cramerotti is helping me to raise funding to make and present the potential new work ‘Colour Field’ through his contacts in USA (Thoma Foundation, Chicago) and China (British Council Hong Kong, Spark Festival).

I plan to share the new work proposal with all of the LUTN presenters for potential touring opportunities (in early September).

Mirror Stage - SHINE - LUTN

Gillian Hobson
Mirror Stage

A kaleidoscope of moving image, colour and light, this immersive installation plays with ideas of the homely and un-homely to consider what it means to be ‘at home’ in the 21st Century. Home as a site of identity and belonging is reimagined as a site and sight where the familiar becomes strange and the remembered and the known intersect and collide.

www.gillhobson.com

Shine Elektonika Jane Webb

Jane Webb
Elektonika K9 Walk

A transforming light installation of a boy walking his dog home. Created with recycled wires, from computer and electronic components, that are assimilated.  Jane creates illuminating humanoids that are made from recycled electronics, that have just been thrown out, adding to E Waste landfill. We need to look after our planet, as this is the next generations home.  

artistjanewebb.co.uk/

Shine - Colour Curiosity Megan Fell

Megan Fell
Colour Curiosity

This immersive experience uses colour and sound to stimulate the senses and invites you to relive your childhood playfulness and engage in a world of wonder and exploration. We encourage you to interact with the furniture, finding the colourful silly world inside the opened drawers. Suitable for children

2017

Shine Howl Creative - Light Up The North

Howl Creative
Howl

We (Howl Creative, Brink Dance Company and LSMarley) have continued to develop our collaborative process and have since been commissioned by Drift Mcr performing our work ‘Dusk’ at the Lowry Theatre. We have also presented our work at music/art performance events by Test Card, VAM and Combined Collective.

We delivered our workshops to over 300 youth dance students as part of ONE Dance UK, as well as working with the NSCD CAT scheme and delivering our ‘Dance and Digital Performance’ professional workshop.

We are currently developing new work that continues to push the collaborative realms of digital/visual art with dance and present performance installation to new and unsuspecting audiences.

Shine Will Hurst - Light Up The North

Will Hurt
Abstract Playground

Upcoming Exhibitions, Screenings
Sept 2019, Jozi Tweets at Fak’ugesi Festival Johannesburg, South Africa.

Solo / Two Man Exhibitions
2019, Concrete Fever Dream, Goods Shed, Tetbury, UK.
2019, Crystalline, Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Buxton, UK.
2018, “Abstract Playground”, LEVEL, Rowsley, UK.
2018, Yarmonics (with Cerith Wyn Evans), Original Projects, Great Yarmouth, UK. 2016, “Configurations”, QUAD, Derby, UK.

2019, Ex Marks the Spot, Original Projects, Great Yarmouth, UK. 2019, Outpost Studio Holders Show, Outpost Studios, Norwich, UK. 2019, Playgrounds, Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK.
2019, Interact, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, UK.
2019, Dreamscapes, Space Studios, Norwich, UK.
2019, DigiPoems, Alliance Française, Harare, Zimbabwe.

2018, Yarmonics, Lower Green, Norwich, UK.
2018, ColabNowNow, Botanica, Maputo, Mozambique.
2018, Cube Art Project, Lincoln Nebraska, USA.
2018, Lumen Channel, Blackdove, Online.
2018, Outpost Studio Holders Show, Outpost Studios, Norwich, Norfolk. 2018, QHD Offline, Queen’s Hall Arts, Hexham, UK.
2018, Fusion : Adventures in Digital Art, Eureka Children’s Centre, Halifax, UK.


2017, Game on! El arte en juego, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2017, Lightwaves, The Lowry, Manchester, UK.
2017, Lumen Matrix, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China. 2017, Adventures in Digital Art, Winns Gallery, London, UK. 2017, Light Night Leeds, Leeds University, Leeds, UK.

Shine Kira Zhigalina- Light Up The North

Kira Zhigalina
Symbiosis

I am still keeping up my art practice, having participated in Nottingham Light Festival earlier this year and have shown Symbiosis at Great Exhibition Road Festival. 

I am now developing Symbiosis into a home use art object, so it’s becoming a mini tech start up now. 

Shine - Storyteller #2 Naifei Wu

Naifei Wu
Storyteller #2

I am still keeping up my art practice, having participated in Nottingham Light Festival earlier this year and have shown Symbiosis at Great Exhibition Road Festival. 

I am now developing Symbiosis into a home use art object, so it’s becoming a mini tech start up now. 

Work in Progress

London Voice Slot Machine (Working Title), participatory project and installation, dimension variable,
Poem of Synonyms, Web project and VR installation, dimension variable

Solo Exhibitions

London Voice Slot Machine (venue and funding unconfirmed)

Work Shops

Workshop: Language and Cityscape – Naifei Wu, Teresa Rego Studio, Porto, Portugal
Workshop: Language and Cityscape – Naifei Wu, Associação Educativa para o Desenvolvimento da Criatividade, Lisbon, Portugal (unconfirmed)

Group Exhibitions

Festival Múltiplo 2019, Zaratan – Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, Portugal
CHANGE: For better or worse. For richer or poorer, Hundred Years, Gallery, London, UK

Work Shops

Workshop: Language and Cityscape – Naifei Wu, Hundred Years Gallery, London, UK
Publication – Project Semear (artist book)

Award/Grant

Taiwan Tech X Art Innovation Project (as an artist collective), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

Solo Exhibitions

3sth.net (as an artist collective), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan
 不透明的字 Words are not Transparent, I/o studio, Pingtung County, Taiwan
 Naifei Wu | “Semear” In Progress (Zaratan AIR | Open Studio), Zaratan – Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, Portugal
Group Exhibitions

Light Night Leeds 2018, Leeds, UK

Artist Talks 

Artist Talk – Naifei Wu, I/o studio, Pingtung County, Taiwan
Artists Talk – Naifei Wu & Jillian Roberts, Zaratan – Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, Portugal

Residencies

AIR Zaratan, Zaratan – Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, Portugal