October 16th, 2018


One of the most interesting pieces ever to come out of Colorado Plastics was artist Berndnaut Smilde’s, Breaking Light piece. This was a triangular prism we made out of 1″ clear acrylic.

Below is the prism set up at Teresa’s 2015, in Boulder Colorado. In collaboration with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and National Center for Atmospheric Research with scientist Steve Tomczyk, this photograph shows the first test on a barn from a distance of 130 meters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Berndnaut was able to use the lighthouse of Cape Leeuwin, in the most south-westerly point on the mainland of the Australian Continent and refracted the light as a temporal interference in the surrounding. It became clearly visible that only a fraction of light gets refracted and as a consequence a bright spectrum colored the landscape every 7.5 seconds.

You can read more about the Berndnaut Smilde Breaking Light project in the June 2018 edition of National Geographic Magazine.