Modulating Monolith by Tyler Jackson for SCAPE Public Art Season 2019

Tyler Jackson Modulating Monolith 2019. Image courtesy of SCAPE Public Art. Photo by Heather Milne.

This glowing rectangular cube landed in Victoria Street in 2019. A utilitarian shape suggesting a shed or public amenity, Modulating Monolith pulsated with light and colour. It drew us close but allowed no access through its radiant but impenetrable skin. It was as inscrutable as its namesake in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Modulating Monolith continued Tyler Jackson’s interest in the history of artists working in light, evoking the seminal kinetic artwork Light-Space Modulator by Maholy-Nagy from 1930. But while Maholy-Nagy’s rotating sculpture cast shadows on the walls around it, creating a photogram effect, Jackson’s Monolith emitted luminosity in a more diffuse way. Jackson says ‘I’m interested in the immateriality of light. Obviously colour is the offspring of light — so the immateriality of colour as well.’

The fleeting nature of light is contrasted with the robust, industrial nature of Jackson’s materials. At a time when our relationship to plastics is increasingly conflicted, Modulating Monolith was both seductive and elusive.

With generous support from:

Sculpture on the Gulf Waiheke Island.