In Day, Alexandros Laios captures the different hours of the day using theatre filters, in a colourful rendering of the melancholic contemplation of the fleeting moment.
From the twilight blue of dawn to the deep sunset red, from the first morning light to the last colour that the human eye can detect, from sunrise to sunset, nine pairs of colours capture the tireless, daily struggle between darkness and light. The sculptural installation Day by Alexandros Laios captures successive colourings from different stages of the day using a large colour palette of theatrical filters. 19 different filters, each wrapped and placed diagonally at different heights, render a 50-meter-long corridor into a huge kaleidoscope, where lights and shadows deliver fleeting moments and memories of the day just passed, creating a horizontal narrative which bears testament to the variety and complexity of human activity.
In an installation activated solely by light, Laios uses theatrical filters with successive colours to depict the basic colour stages of a day. He commences with the twilight blue, i.e. the first morning light which he juxtaposes with a slightly brighter one, then he continues with the warmer lights of midday, and finally he concludes with the colours of the sunset, ending with red, which, as he says, is ‘actually the last thing we perceive, the last color at the spectral end of human vision.’ The work is conceptually connected to points and snapshots of everyday life, altering and defining our perception of space and time. While crossing the corridor, the visitor also traverses his personal time, imbuing new meaning to the passage of the day.
Day is connected to the concept of well-being, which is not simply understood as living with material pleasures and comforts, but as the experiential relationship of balance with our natural environment, and indeed in its primary essence, that of life-giving light. The practical manifestation of our concern and interest towards nature, are reformulated as the need to open our eyes to the light of the world (the ancient Greek concept of jewelry) and to share this experience with others around us. A world without light is a world without care, and vice versa.
Photography Loukianos Arnaoutakis
