Last Light 2019

Chapel, Fitted Construction, and Custom Software with Manipulated A/V environment.

New Media Castle, Banfee Castle, Tasmania, Romania

Below find the wall text from the Exhibition:

MATTHEW SCHREIBER

LAST LIGHT (2019)

 Last Light (2019),  Re-Presents Light and Sound from one sacred source to another.  

During 2012 in the Yucatan Mexico jungle, Schreiber worked on several projects associated with a privately commissioned Pyramid and Cenote.   A Cenote is a cave with a ground water fed pool.  In Maya rites these pools were considered gateways to the afterlife.  The pyramid project included a tunnel that connected to the cenote underground.  The tunnel was built as an optical device to align with a single solar event.   During the alignment a beam of sunlight traveled from the top of the pyramid into the cenote pool.   It was during this solar event that Schreiber recorded the beam of light with underwater video footage.  This recording was the “First Light” solar alignment of the tunnel, and the “Last Light” alignment before the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar event of 2012. 

For Electric Caste Schreiber chose to use the Chapel space to re-present the solar alignment video from the Yucatan Cenote.  The two circles represent the 2 ends of the solar alignment tunnel from the Yucatan Pyramid.   Viewers enter the Chapel and are surrounded by the light recorded from the solar event.    

Over 12 minutes the video recording dissolves from recognizable images to pure light and sound.  The structure of the video is formed by a program of “entrainment” that is used to force a trance-state or meditation.  Entrainment uses strobing light and pure or “binaural” sound to slow a person’s waking state to a dream or meditative state.  The frequency range of the binaural sound is derived from the late 19th century composer Alexander Scriabin, who was a pioneer in the relation of color to sound, or Synesthesia.  Schreiber’s work with sound often references Scriabin’s six-note “Mystic Chord”.  In Last Light (2019), Schreiber is using the Mystic Chord as the core structure for the entrainment program.  

Enjoy!