TRACING LIGHT

Director: Thomas Riedelsheimer
Duration: 99 mins
Year: 2024
Subtitles
Documentary

In Tracing Light, science and art come together to illuminate the mysteries of light: light which is the starting point of the journey into abstraction. The documentary brings together leading physicists and artists from Scotland, England and Germany, from the far edge of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides to the Max Planck Institute in Erlangen, in a quest to understand and animate light.

As part of a guest residency at the University of Glasgow, the artist duo Semiconductors—Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt—working with single-photon avalanche diode cameras, aka SPAD, which can be used to film the propagation of light in space. This collaboration between artists and physicists leads them directly into discussion about the nature of the speed of light and of time.

Talking about light can seem confusing… well-nigh impossible. The quantum world does not align with our logic or our language and we often reach the limit of our understanding. Tracing Light does not want to propose explanations. Rather, Thomas Riedelsheimer’s images, in combination with the encounters between artists and scientists, aim to open up a space for mystery. This is where the magic and the sensuality of his film begins.