Summary

Greener incorporates lasers and custom-designed optics to create thin luminous planes of light traversing the landscape. Surface textures are heightened in the laser planes, as are the interactions between people and the land as they cross the terrain.

Project Description

Greener is the most recent project of Iole Alessandrini's Laser Project Series begun in 2001 during Alessandrini's Residency at the Bellevue Art Museum. For the Olympic Sculpture Park, Alessandrini created Greener to amplify the sensory exploration and interaction within the people and the landscape.

"By projecting the light of the Laser Plane skimming the grass blades" says Alessandrini, "the entire terrace is illuminated giving the location a glowing, connecting appearance that extends from the Gates Amphitheater through the Valley."

Alessandrini transforms the traditional grass lawn, an icon of suburban America, to a place of heightened sensory experience — triggered by a casual walk through the grass. The leaves that for Walt Whitman connected the lives of individuals across the American continent play a symbiotic role with the visible yet intangible, life-giving nature of light.