I realized I had not posted this:

Experiences with Light

Familiar:

A place that I consider �familiar� sadly enough is my computer, my desk in general, really. My desk is often messy, and has 4 light sources. The first: my sound system. The second: my mouse. The third: my computer�s monitor. The fourth: my lamp.

My mouse contains multi-colored LEDs that glow in spontaneous patterns. What is interesting to me about this light source is the effect that the light of the mouse has on my hand. As I use my computer, I notice that the underneath section of my hand glows strongly in different colors. I find it really interesting that this light, and light in general starts off very strong and then gets less and less opaque. This especially is interesting to me with colorful lights because of the change in the color itself that results. For example, I noticed that the red becomes slightly blue when combined with the table, and that the green color would become slightly yellow.

My sound system consists of one very small green light, about a centimeter in diameter, if even that. I did not really notice this particular light source while working at my computer, but I took great notice of it in the absolute darkness of my room. As I lay in my bed, around midnight, everything is completely black except for that one green dot. It�s funny how this one spec of light can really have an effect on the way we sleep.

The third light source is my computer�s monitor. I have a 24 inch iMac, and it has a very bright display. During the day while working on my projects I did not realize how bright it really is, but at night, the lightness of it became overwhelming. In class we talked about how certain lights can give off certain feelings and emotion, I feel like this light does just that. The intensity of this light does two things to me right now, and oddly they are completely different. I find that this light actually makes me very tired, puts me in a zoned-out trance of sorts. I also find that this light, by putting me into a trance, allows me to focus more on what I am doing.

The final light source on my desk is my lamp. I replaced the bulb that it came with earlier in the year with a green �party bulb.� This green light is very vibrant, but does not put out light that is usable for reading or seeing my keyboard. The green that

projects from the bulb has a very small radius, but it provides a bizarre addition to the scenery of all my crap on my desk. For example, the vibrancy of my bamboo plant is added to greatly by the green, and the shadows of my stack of papers are very dark and exaggerated.

Subtle:

Last night I decided to drive up Gayley without my glasses on. Seeing as I am close to blind, I figured this would result in something interesting. I have noticed before that when I don't have my glasses on at night, interesting effects result from the lights of the cars, lampposts, and other light sources, but I never have paid much attention to it. In that one block, I tried to be extremely detailed in my sight of these lights, and tried to notice everything I could without crashing my car.

I found that the world around me (the lighting at least) was reduced to circular matter. About 30 glowing circles existed in the world around me and my car. These lights ranged in color, from the green light of the traffic light to the yellow to the red, as well as the reverse and taillights of the car in front of my and the headlights of the car behind me. The lampposts around me gave off an interesting yellow glow.

Each one of these colorful spots was surrounded by a halo that gradually became more and more see-through as the diameter of the circle grew. These circles were not perfect, each had imperfections and each was different. The lights made me think of fingerprints. Some spots would be missing within the light sources creating an abstract pattern.

I also found it interesting that the reflection of light in the concrete became more exaggerated with my blurred vision. The lack of focus mixed with the dark pavement, multi-colored unnatural lighting resulted in something similar to a pond, or more specifically the Santa Monica pier. These strange reflections that were created by my eye problems really did remind me of a time at the Santa Monica Pier at night watching the lights of the Ferris Wheel reflect abstractly in the water.

As I look out my window, I realize that this phenomenon does not exist as it did last night. It is the darkness of the sky mixed with my blurred vision that come together to make this circular phenomenon possible for me to experience.
I decided that this light experience belonged in the �subtle� category because of the fact that this is something natural that occurs everyday in my life. All that I needed to do to fully experience this �light show� was to lift my glasses towards my forehead.

Extreme:

On the UCLA campus, there is a building called �Franz Hall.� On top of Franz there is one single spotlight that is GIANT, more than the width of one of the building�s windows. On my way to a meeting in a near by building, I was very intrigued by the nature of this life and the extremeness of it�s power.

The first time I ever walked by this building and noticed this light, I actually thought it was the moon, and that we were going through a bizarre lunar cycle, but no, it was the light. To this day, I still am tricked by this light and its similarity to the natural light of the moon.

While studying this light I tried to think about what it was exactly that made me think about nature, and what made me feel so entranced by it. I found that this light reminded me of the moon because of its incredible power, but also the fact that it did not necessarily light the area up as if I were on the set of a movie.
To me this point is interesting. If this light is so big and so bright, but is not able to transmit the proper amount of light to light up the courtyard, why does it exist. Maybe they wanted to make it seem like it was a moon. This was the psychology building, maybe they just wanted to get me thinking about the relationship between electronic and natural light and how they can complement eachother, and seemingly eliminate each other�s place in society.

I think there is a lot to be said about this trickery. It is interesting to me that a massive unnatural light can provide the same feeling as a light source that is completely natural, like the moon. This brings up a thought I had while out at a fancy restaurant. I noticed that the restaurant used strings of small bulbs to create a romantic setting. I found it very interesting that technology has now become a phenomenon that can be associated with love and romance.

INDIVIDUAL JPEGS:

A color can not be solely represented by something that we see. No one person can define a color for all to agree upon. Colors are personal. Growing up in elementary school we have all of heard of a color having a series of complementary colors, but I want to argue that each color also consists of a complementary emotional color.

With this piece I am simply showing the blurred lines behind what a particular color (in this case green) has been defined for us, and how we may choose to define it for ourself.

The process (after the thinking) began with some intense laser-cutting. A laser cutter is essentially a printer that uses FIRE AND LAZER BEAMS instead of ink. I used one of these machines to create the very precise cuts in the letters of green as well as my color goggles.

The installation goes through multiple stages. at first glance it is meant to provoke some confusion and thought on why the word green would be illuminated with blue light.

Once the visitor of the installation finds the color goggle, they are able to see the common definition of the word green represented by the blue light�s transformation to green.

This seemed to create an interesting sense of reassurance for the viewer. The comfort level of the word green being illuminated in green caused people to smile where as the juxtaposition of the word green and the color blue seemed to cause confusion and anxiety.

Light Lines _Angel from Matt Manos on Vimeo.

I also did a version with the song "videotapes" by Radiohead.

Light Lines_ Videotapes from Matt Manos on Vimeo.

I wanted to create a narrative that dealt with my current stresses and obligations. With this narrative I hand cut words that correlate with stresses, and wanted to create something that uses the loop to its advantage, forcing the viewer to only see a few words at a time, but new words each time.

I was interested in studying how the curves in the wall played a great effect on the light. Two things really intrigued me about this piece.

The first: It is impossible to tell that the walls are curved from the camera's angle until the lights are effected. This shows how much light can tell you about a surface or environment.

The second: I was very interested In how the curved wall created a very bizarre falling sensation. When I first filmed this, I actually thought my box had fallen over. This phenomenon is something that was far from planned, but thoroughly enjoyed.