Lighting Xi'an Festival 2025——《Divided》
A monumental red luminous sphere is split into two halves and encaged within industrial scaffolding commonly seen on construction sites, forming a striking and visually arresting scene. Visitors are invited to move between the two hemispheres, experiencing an enigmatic atmosphere enveloped by intense color and radiant light. This is DIVIDED, a work by artist SpY presented at the Xi’an Light Festival. The installation is part of the “Earth” series, which consists of “Earth”, “Divided”, and “Confronted”—a group of works that reflect on fragmentation, conflict, and coexistence, offering a symbolic reading of the contemporary world through powerful formal language.
The posture of the luminous sphere—imbued with an intense red light, fractured and embedded within a metal framework—not only heightens the tension between cubic and spherical geometries, but also clearly articulates a condition of constraint, forming what can be understood as a “conceptual cage.” Through this work, SpY continues his exploration of the relationship between body, space, and perception, while investigating how disproportionate monumental scale and the use of light transform the viewer’s experience and reshape the way urban environments are perceived.
By establishing a direct and physical relationship with the viewer’s body, the installation becomes an active medium that intervenes in space and alters one’s perception of the surrounding environment. Its monumental scale asserts a powerful presence that is felt before it is cognitively processed, generating a sense of attraction and awe that intensifies as the viewer draws closer. This form of artistic experience relies on the participation of the audience to be fully realized. Visitors walk through the space between the two hemispheres, entering a corridor completely immersed in light. In this process, the position of the detached observer dissolves; the viewer becomes an integral element of the work, physically situated at the very point of the sphere’s fracture.
The journey between the two halves transforms the relationship between the installation’s form and the viewer’s body, drawing the experience inward. Within this suspended field of light, the tension between division and unity strikes the body and senses in a direct and emotional way. Proximity to the curved surfaces, the saturated chromatic intensity, and the radiating brightness alter the perception of space, blurring conventional references of scale and distance. At this moment, the human body becomes an alternative measure—standing before a fragmented yet overwhelmingly imposing presence. The deep and uncanny red light—recurrent in SpY’s recent work—acts as an emotional and enveloping element, transforming the space into a suspended atmosphere. The work does not merely occupy a site; it redefines it, turning it into an immersive experience in which perception, scale, and the body become the fundamental materials of the proposal.
In DIVIDED, SpY encourages the use of the body while simultaneously daring to unsettle bodily experience. By creating a work of monumental scale, he renders scale itself ambiguous and unstable. In a world marked by conflict and contradiction, the work subtly stirs deep-seated desires and unease through a reality defined by division.
