D.A. Therrien’s Beautiful Light Rescheduled to Debut in January

Light-based installation and performance to take place along Waterfront Friday, Jan.16

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – International artist and Phoenix native D.A. Therrien’s reappearance in Arizona was recently postponed due to the inclement weather.  He was expected to debut his latest artwork Beautiful Light at the third and final Night Lights on the Canal public art event, but was unable to install his massive device due to the amount of precipitation in the three days prior to the event.

Scottsdale Public Art has announced that D.A. Therrien’s Beautiful Light has been officially rescheduled to debut Friday, Jan.16 in downtown Scottsdale along the canal at The Waterfront.

“We were unfortunately forced to call off the final installation of this signature piece less than 48-hours before its début, in concern for the safety for our staff and audience,” said Margaret Bruning, Associate Director of Scottsdale Public Art. “However, thanks to the cooperation of the city, nearby businesses, sponsors, SRP, and the artist, we are able to reschedule this captivating artwork for January.”

Therrien will bring his large-scale artwork to this one-night-only performance, in which he will suspend his one word art work from 100 feet above the Arizona Canal at Scottsdale Waterfront. The art spectacle features an enormous 76-foot-wide alphanumeric array of quartz lamps, called the 4 Letter Word Machine, outputting 300 kilowatts of white light energy to its viewers.

Several times throughout the evening (times to be announced), performers (operators) will ascend to platforms over the canal and control the four 16-foot-square alphanumeric displays manually via custom high power switches based on archaic music box technology. Brilliant bolts of white light will scroll through a spectacular and mysterious message, creating what appears to be confusion and chaos. Beautiful Light will be a mesmerizing performance of visual frenzy and methodical messaging, creating an abstract visual language from a string of patterns and complex words.

Beautiful Light is Therrien’s first public experiment with the capabilities of the 4 Letter Word Machine as a visual translation and communications system addressing elemental discoveries or technologies-the 4-letter DNA code, digital coding systems-and the most profound of human technologies, communication via language.

Via various hexadecimal graphic coding methods developed by Therrien, he is able to potentially communicate over 4 billion unique messages via the 4LWM (4, 294, 967, 296 to be precise). Therrien has been developing and presenting the 256 bit alphanumeric display device in his performances since 1984, particularly in his performance project, of note: Therrien’s alphanumeric device is able to represent a number of different codes/alphabets directly in graphic form, including semaphore, morse, standard alphabets and most interestingly, Braille. Braille was the first encoding system representing binary code for letters. The irony of translating Braille to light is not lost on Therrien. The artwork is among the first art-in-infrastructure projects commissioned by Scottsdale Public Art to engage the canal system as cultural space.

Beautiful Light is commissioned by Scottsdale Public Art in partnership with Starwood Capital Group and Golub Company.

“Scottsdale is a thriving and vibrant destination community and this is why we have and will continue to support Scottsdale Public Art in their endeavors of bringing free arts and culture activities to the community,” said Bret Sassenberg Vice President, of Starwood Capital Group.

About Scottsdale Public Art 
The mission of the Scottsdale Public Art Program is to make Scottsdale one of the most desirable communities in the country in which to live, work and visit by incorporating art and design projects throughout. In 1985, the City of Scottsdale established the Scottsdale Public Art Program with the goal to enhance the quality of life for its residents and visitors. Since then more than 60 permanent and temporary public artworks have been commissioned throughout the community. Scottsdale’s program and projects have won local, regional and national awards. Public art has taken many forms ranging from the walls of the Pima Freeway to James Turrell’s “skyspace” at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The Scottsdale Public Art Program is managed by the Scottsdale Cultural Council, a private, non-profit 501 (c) (3) management organization that administers the arts and cultural affairs of the City of Scottsdale and also manages the Scottsdale Center for the Arts and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. For more info please visit http://www.scottsdalepublicart.org/.

About D.A. Therrien
The work of D.A. Therrien (who is originally from Scottsdale) examines the interface of man and machine, often incorporating the human body into large-scale rituals of technology. In his large-scale transmissions, artist D.A. Therrien narrates the primal bond of human and biological communications systems as the inseparable building blocks to life and the promise it holds. For more information, visit http://www.datherrien.com/.

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