In August 2001 artists Bruce Gilchrist, Jo Joelson and photographer Anthony Oliver travelled to Greenland to conduct experiments relating to light and physiology during the transition from 24 hour daylight to the twilight onset of winter. The Polaria fieldwork, driven by solar power alone, has given birth to a ‘self illuminating’ machine, inspired by post industrial concerns over the quality of the working environment and recent medical research into the beneficial effects of polarised, full-spectrum light.

This interactive virtual daylight installation presents ‘light in waiting’. Each participant enters the cube, sits on a translucent chair, puts their hands on bronze electrodes and completes a gentle electrical circuit. A reading taken from their body is matched to the corresponding reading taken from Gilchrist in Greenland, and the cube generates the kind of light at which this reading was taken. The individual’s physiology triggers a virtual daylight state particular to them and representative of the arctic light.

Most of the people who have been in the cube have found it a moving, positive experience. One reviewer prescribed it as a cure for the winter blues.

Via del.icio.us. See also Scotsman.