project name: Rainbow Machine (for mid-night and mid-day)
artist name: Rebecca Cummins
artforms:
Installation
science engagements:
Physical and Optical Phenomena
science partners:
Sundials Australia, John Ward
Dr Margaret Folkard, Adelaide (Physicists)
project description:
The Rainbow Machine is an outdoor water and light sculptural apparatus that enlists light and water to create.
With the Rainbow Machine, sunlight will produce the dramatic, highly saturated spectrum we are familiar with; high intensity artificial light will be used at night to create an unexpected, but beautiful colour band sequence.
No two viewers see the same rainbow (in fact, neither do your two eyes). The spectrums created are virtual images caused by the refraction of light in the water droplets at an angle between 40-42° from your eye. Let the light fall on your back and follow your shadow into the rainbow; move and the rainbow moves with you.
exhibition history:
The Canberra National Sculpture Forum, Canberra, 1998