Liberate your mind and then the eyes will follow

The ethereal nature of Ann Veronica Janssen's work investigates "the authority of things". Picture / Carolyn Robertson

The dazzling lights that Belgian artist Ann Veronica Janssens has installed at Artspace may do strange things to your eyes, but it is the activity in your brain that interests her.

Her installation comprises intense projections of flashing concentric rings changing colour, interspersed with moments of darkness. Although it is a brilliant experience for the eyes, your brain makes it even more so by creating the illusion that the rings are moving.

"It's a little bit like when you drop a stone on the water; it ripples and your brain starts to do this as well," says Janssens.

The first time she showed the work in San Francisco in 2003, she invited scientists to view the piece.

"After seeing the effect - that the observer himself starts to create a spiral rotative movement, which was never already observed - they have to say, 'We have never seen this kind of thing'."

Although this might resemble the optical effects of painters such as Bridget Riley, Janssens sees this as being different. The effect of Janssens' work is not fixed like a painting on a canvas. Each viewer has a different, subjective experience of her elusive materials.

Although art, and especially painting, can usually be characterised by whether it is abstract or represents more figurative, real-world experiences, both camps are encompassed by Janssens.

"I consider these works an exploration of abstract matters such as colour, light, form, and a figurative representation of intangible phenomena."

Janssens likes to capture ephemeral experiences such as the passing of time.

"Because you are in the light, you don't see so you have to decelerate. Physically you have the feeling that the time is changing," she says of her installations where she accentuates the presence of light by filling the room with fog.

Her fog pieces appeared at the 1998 Sydney Biennale and she represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 1999. The catalogue for the Sydney show said the fog was "an object-less sculptural intervention", and discussed another incarnation which was able to obliterate the overwhelming architecture of a white-walled gallery in Antwerp.

"It looks like a monumental sculpture but in fact there is nothing. It's a question of the authority of things," she says of the ethereal nature of her work, which can disappear with a gust of wind through an open door.

Although science usually occupies itself with the explanation of the physical world, Janssens uses it in a more evocative way to explore intangible experiences and to "dematerialise matter". In notes on another exhibition, she describes trying to create the experience of walking through a sunset. "I try to create some poetic experiences with very common and accessible things, and also with some accessible knowledge which was elaborated by science."

Also highlighting the experience of time, her work named Ciel is a live-feed projection of the sky, as seen from the window of the Artspace office and beamed into the gallery. It is inspired by Auckland's dynamic weather.

"In New Zealand the weather changed all the time - every five minutes. It becomes like a soap on the television or that kind of suspense - after a time you want to go to see what will be happening."

There is also a political dimension to her work and the first incarnation of Ciel was installed at the base of the Belgecom office building in Brussels. "It was a double tower with a bridge and the two last floors and the bridge are only for the leadership of their trust. They asked me to make a specific work for their collection and they have a good collection for all the building but they gave me that beautiful place." She projected the view down amidst the darker streets where 8000 workers can see it.

"It's a kind of idea of democratisa-

tion of the landscape."

In an another project, she placed stickers on 6000 100-lire coins, indicating their equivalent value in more expressive measurements, such as ecstasy (30 seconds), rice (16.589 grams), stardust (0.0012 grams), memory (0.3 megabytes), and so on. Another 1000 100-lire coins were engraved with rings on one side, making one face appear conical. They were all put into circulation.

"I like to use a very common effect," she says of the way she brings wonder to everyday things and liberates the viewer to complete the work with their own perception.

"My work ... is like a laboratory. I might try something and I show what I try, and I don't want to indicate how to see the work. You can make your personal opinion about what you explain of what you see - and even a child can know - everyone can see."

* Ann Veronica Janssens at Artspace, 300 K Rd, until Mar 18.

Head of department of visual arts at Berliner Kunstlerprogramm, Dr Friedrich Meschede, will discuss the work of Ann Veronica Janssens, Sat, Mar 11, 2pm, Artspace