LOOK TO THE SKIES

EDOARDO DIONEA CICCONI ON BRINGING THE WONDER OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS TO THE SKIES OF EUROPE

The Italian artist Edoardo Dionea Cicconi has been illuminating skies across Europe in recent months with ‘AKR’ The Light Sculpture In The Sky – a stunning column of light that has accurately reproduced the otherworldly colors of the aurora borealis and transported them to the likes of Rome. Inspired by cosmology and driven by a philosophical sense of deep wonderment, his latest large-scale public intervention employs cutting-edge technologies to investigate physics, time and our shared sense of the infinite  – codifying the colors of the aurora borealis in digital form to create a movable feast of a sculpture in the physical realm. Arguably his most ambitious work to date, ‘AKR’ The Light Sculpture In The Sky was first beamed from the historic terrace of the Palazzo Reale in Palermo, Sicily, headquarters of the National Institute of Astrophysics – the colors swirling in motion as they reached for the heavens, inviting members of the public to pause, look to the skies and consider their place in the mind-bending vastness of the cosmos. Here, the artist speaks to Flaunt about his desire to activate wonder, the vagaries of individual perception and the haunting power of the seemingly ethereal.