Illuminos

Illuminos are brothers Matt and Rob Vale, who for the last 13 years have been creating visually inventive, memorable artworks and experiences. Their works range from very large scale illumination to small scale imagery, but always working to create something unique and specific to location and viewer. Combining elements of installation, dance, movement and music through film and architecture, each project that they approach develops from an exploration of the emotions of an environment, aiming to capture the essence of a place, space or feeling as a shared moment of time.
Their practice is inherently collaborative and cross-disciplinary. Wherever possible they seek to work with participants and partners to generate artwork, avoiding a tokenistic approach, looking instead for ways in which their actions or involvement can become the piece, collecting the smallest moments and elevating then to a dramatic and fantastical scale. Our large-scale projection artworks centre upon a deconstruction of video as screen and narrative, exploring the potentials of whole building time-based work to interact with viewers en mass, morphing and reclaiming urban and rural spaces. By using light, sound and projection the actions of collaborators can be fused together to bring a space to life, and to allow audiences to view it in a new light. Multi-screen imagery matched directly to architectural features and composed soundscapes allows them to build large scale dramatic works from small beginnings, fusing actions and movement together into visual and aural film works that are full of excitement and wonder. Whilst their work incorporates new digital media and complex equipment, they are interested in combining these new technologies with notions of the curio, the Victorian penny machines or Edwardian Automata, visual wonders and spectacles that amused, engaged and intrigued. Recent works such as Illuminating Shakespeare, The Realm’s Greater Measure or Momentous look to recreate and elevate this visual experience for the contemporary society through digital means. The sheer joy participants of The Penny Drops felt in dropping a coin in a slot, then seeing their coin bounce and fall down a huge building is a reaction we would always aim for in our work.

They seek to create work that is a representation of spaces, visual poems that coax the viewer into considering a place, playing with their expectations. Previous works where this can be seen include the massive Ar Waith ar Daith, transforming the Wales Millennium Centre, the five-building spectacular Light Fantastic, marking 100 years since the formation of Plymouth City, the transformation of the Rotunda into an interactive bookcase for Liverpool Library, or the spectacular 100 metre projection of hundreds of participants and their front doors on the Le Mans Crescent in Bolton (door to door).

Brought up in Derbyshire, and coming from a creative family (their younger sisters are an actor and a choreographer) we pursued the arts via degrees in music and Fine Art respectively. Matt went on to study lighting and sound at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), London, with Rob undertaking an MA in Contemporary Fine Art Practices at Leeds Met, working as Digital Fine Art Lecturer at Lancaster University for 3 years, and as Arts Projects Manager for Lime, Manchester. They have exhibited internationally in France, USA and Ireland, and were nominated for the 2010 Northern Arts Prize.