Preview: One Thousand Points of Light, part of the Edinburgh Art Festival

By WILL COOPER
Published on 19/07/2012 23:13

DUTCH artist Melvin Moti’s first solo UK show opens this week. On 20 July the National Museum of Scotland, as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival 2012, will present Moti’s One Thousand Points of Light exhibition.

Moti has delved into the collections of National Museums Scotland and will display what he’s found in a way unlike it has been seen before. The display will be lit with UV lights to show how objects transform, absorb and then emit light.

From scorpion exoskeletons and fossils to more everyday items like bottles, Moti’s idea is to explore the way we view things from a literal and physiological point of view and in doing that make us aware of how we process the world around us.

The artefacts chosen reflect the wide range in the National Museums Scotland collection and are chosen to reflect light, they are able to reflect and use the UV light cast upon them and turn it into something else changing the way we see them and changing into something else entirely.

This chemical reaction to light is, as well, the basis for Moti’s use of non-digital film in his accompanying piece, a film called Eigenlicht, meaning “intrinsic light”.

The film displays the hidden beauty within the reflective minerals and challenges the way we see even the most inanimate object whilst providing a link between the most disparate of artefacts. Moti has said “however dead the material of the rocks might be, they still seem to communicate to us.”

• The exhibit runs from 20 July – 21 October 2012 at National Museum of Scotland