CFL - CODED FLUORESCENT LIGHT

 A Video Rebus 

English version, 2019, 5:53’ loop, video triptych  for 3 HD or 4K monitors (≥65") or laser projectors, frame-synchronized video playback, dimensions variable

German version: 2025, 4K projection, selected as the winning project in the Kunsthaus Grenchen’s  international open call ON AIR, projected onto the museum’s large front window and visible to the commuters from the train station across the street.

After Morse Rigveda (published 2013), CFL - Coded Fluorescent Light is the second work inspired by a compact fluorescent light bulb in a Varanasi garage in November 2012. At the end of its service life and about to burn out, it flickered irregularly. I imagined that the flickering was only seemingly random and in reality was Morse code. With the ongoing Dev Deepawali festival, I interpreted the message as a hymn and envisioned the light bulb joining the chants of the pandits on Assi Ghat. 

Early that morning I had read in the diaries of Alice Boner. The introduction quotes a passage from the Rigveda X asking the gods to grant us vision - this had to be the dying light bulb’s recital.

Whereas the much shorter single channel piece Morse Rigveda was created with simply Morse in mind, CFL - Coded Fluorescent Light is composed of various visual and aural codes. All dragooned into sync, they present a video rebus in triptych form, which recites the following verses from the Rigveda:

 MAY Surya guard us out of heaven, and Vata from the firmament,

And Agni from terrestrial spots. 

Thou Savitar whose flame deserves hundred libations, be thou pleased: 

From failing lightning keep us safe.

May Savitar the God, and may Parvata also give us sight;  

May the Creator give us sight.

 Give sight unto our eye, give thou our bodies sight that they may see:

May we survey, discern this world.

Thus, Surya, may we look on thee, on thee most lovely to behold,

See clearly with the eyes of men.