LAUREN BAKER: LIGHTING UP THE UNIVERSE
Artist with LETTER TO MOTHER EARTH, 2019 Installation Exhibited at Tate Modern London. Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
Lauren Baker is an experimental artist whose practice expands across multiple disciplines and mediums to address the vastness of the universe. Conceptually grounded but also aesthetically striking, her work involves making the unseen seen, translating non-visual information into installations that grab the eye. Bridging deep interests in spirituality with scientific discovery, a key inspiration for Baker is the Nikola Tesla quote, ‘If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibrations’. Many of her pieces directly reference the frequencies emitted by astronomical bodies, as well as those attributed to plants, human organs and chakras.
The Infinity Trapdoor, 2014
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
Originally from Middlesbrough, Baker spent her twenties working outside of the art world, before time spent travelling in South America led to her participating in a street art project in Brazil. The moment of epiphany that called her to art was triggered shortly afterwards by taking psychoactive ayahuasca in a shamanic ceremony in the Peruvian Amazon. In a way, that represented the return to a journey interrupted, as Baker had started to study A-level art before switching to sociology because of a lack of freedom on the art course. Baker now works from a large studio space in Hackney, producing prints and small wall-based pieces through to large sculptures and installations.
Galaxy Explosion (Diamond Dust - Purple), 2018
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
Wide-ranging in both the ideas she engages with and the materials she uses, Baker’s visual style is often built around either emitting or reflecting light. Text-based, neon works form a major part of her practice, shining bright with forceful positivity, while mirrors and metallic surfaces, as well the multiple reflection points of scattered diamond dust - offset by blackness - also feature prominently. Many of the neon pieces connect on a personal level - the artist either speaking directly to the viewer, herself, or a significant other through phrases such as ‘The thunder to my lightning’ and ‘Together we will burn brighter’. Yet a sense of mystery and emergence - of connecting with something beyond or much bigger than our own immediate world - pulsates throughout her work.
As alluded to in such titles as The Infinity Trapdoor, 2014, and Dark Matter (Dimensional Flux), 2018, the bigger beyond evoked by Baker is essentially the vastness and multiplicity of the universe. The Infinity Trapdoor was commissioned for Unknown Festival, in a forest in Croatia. It’s a surreal art structure that alludes to the notion of going into the unknown and which was by the writer and philosopher; Aldous Huxley, who said: ‘there are things known and there are things unknown, and in between there are the doors of perception’. Dark Matter (Dimensional Flux) is inspired by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope which observes deep space and has over its existence, revealed over 100 billion galaxies. More recently, the telescope focussed on a section of deep space no bigger than a thumbnail to reveal hundreds of thousands of previously undiscovered galaxies. The enveloping blanket of a star-lit night sky is a recurring visual reference point, with many works channelling that sense of beauty and awe we have when viewing the stars. Inspired by the findings of the Hubble Telescope, and the way it has focused in on and amplified patches of the night sky to reveal, as she says, 'over a 100 billion galaxies', Baker has developed the extensive series The Immensity of the Universe. Among its diverse pieces, the Galaxy Explosion works put the beauty of the cosmos to the fore, reinterpreting the imagery produced by Hubble in Baker’s signature style. The new ‘Explosion’ artworks explore the Big Bang and the intriguing beauty born from destruction and chaos. One particularly dramatic example is Stardust - The Deep Field (Lenticular), 2018, a six-image lenticular backed by an LED light box, described by the artist as depicting ‘a galactic explosion of shooting stars and space matter’. Because of the way the lenticular lenses shift how the images are perceived, moving past the artwork brings it to life: suggesting a celestial dance of explosion and implosion, separation and unison, change and repetition.
The all-encompassing universe, as pervasive as it is physically vast, is also evoked through the artist’s 2018 Colour of Energy series. Based around the energy of the seven chakras - bodily focal points central to tantric understanding of physiological and psychic wellbeing – each work resembles a single, searing sun, with a neon ring surrounding a core of diamond dust. To create the series, Baker listened to the sound frequencies attributed to each chakra in a meditative state and visualised corresponding colours. In part, Baker used the colours related to those traditionally associated with each chakra, but she also visualised extra colours and intuitively followed the visions she had while meditating to create her own version of the seven energy colours.
The unseen energies portrayed by the Colour of Energy pieces point to how Baker is concerned with both the known universe and the possible; the universe as understood through scientific knowledge and the universe as understood through sacred knowledge. Baker has combined work from the series to create a multi-sensory installation, using a Rife machine (a radionics device invented by Royal Raymond Rife in the 1930s) to deliver matching electromagnetic frequencies to the fingertips of visitors. Heightening the effect of experiencing the artwork - for some to the point of triggering an out-of-body sensation - the installation draws a line of connection between the individual, the chakras and a greater whole.
Colour of Energy unframed auras 426.7HZ (THIRD-EYE), 2017
The Third Eye represents your connection to insight and wisdom, transmitting at a frequency of 426.7Hz.
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
Colour of Energy unframed auras 480HZ (CROWN), 2017
The Crown chakra, transferred at a frequency of 480 Hz is situated at the top of your head.
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
Dark Matter (Dimensional Flux), 2018.
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
More recently, Baker has worked from a calculation of the sun’s frequency as 126.22 Hz to create the sculptural installation Frequency of the Sun, 2020, a golden ball of amorphous shapes - somewhat similar to brain tissue - sitting on a mirrored plinth. The artist visualised the surface of the sun by using experimental software to play the 126.22 Hz frequency inside a sphere and simulate its effect on the exterior. While Baker created the artwork in 2019, the resulting installation will be uncannily familiar to those who have seen the image of the sun’s surface produced in early 2020 by The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on Maui. The lattice of golden nuggets revealed by the telescope is made up of plasma cells – the size of Texas – rising and falling, and contributing to the solar storms that can ultimately impact the earth. Baker’s piece suggests a similarly fluid, molten giant: enigmatic and entrancing, but also destructive. Created as part of the Desert X Al-Ula 2020 MTArt Agency arts project in Saudi Arabia, the siting of Frequency of the Sun in a UNESCO-protected desert adds to its potency, bringing the star into an earthly environment where its energy is felt with particular ferocity.
Frequency of the Sun — Desert Installation, 2020
Commissioned for the UNESCO protected desert in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. The surface pattern of the sculpture was formed using experimental software taking a segment of the visual frequency of the Sun which is 126.22Hz and morphing this into a sphere of amorphous shapes to represent the movement of the Sun. Since creating the artwork from mid-2019, new high-resolution images of the sun were released from an advanced solar telescope in Maui in Jan 2020, with astonishing similarity. The Sun’s acoustical waves bounce from one side of the Sun to the other in about two hours, causing the Sun’s surface to oscillate as the Sun vibrates up and down, in and out. An MTArt Agency project.
Photo credit: Roman Scott
Channelling frequency again, but on a more terrestrial level, is A Letter to Mother Earth, 2019. Shown as part of the Tate Exchange programme at London’s Tate Modern, the installation saw Baker project the lines of a letter - written in the form of sound waves - communicating, ‘an open apology for the last 100 years of destruction and neglect on behalf of the human race’. Inspired by the concept of plant bioacoustics (the ability of plants to interact with their environment via sound waves), a letter delivered in that manner seemed to the artist an appropriate way to offer a heartfelt apology. The process involved Baker recording herself reading the letter, followed by the use of software to translate her words into sound waves, which were then projected onto a scroll inside the museum.
An Open Dialogue With Nature, 2019
Continuing from ‘Letter to Mother Earth’, Lauren spreads awareness of deforestation holding a strong vision to make a difference. This multi sensory installation involves the sound of a jungle thunder storm, synced with projection mapped light including moving 'frequency waves' and lightning flashes. The lit frequencies represent the 'Letter To Mother Earth' message to nature and the sound and light syncing represents nature communing as a new dialogue and deeper understanding is reciprocated. Accompanying the tree sculpture, people are encouraged to plant trees in the Amazon rainforest with the tap of a card via One Tree Planted charity. The mission is to plant 8888 trees in the Amazon. Lauren is close to reaching this goal. https://laurenbakerart.com/artworks/categories/12/2496-lauren-baker-an-open- dialogue-with-nature-2019/
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
A concern for nature and the environment predates Baker’s professional journey as an artist and she has often used her art as a vehicle to support organisations working in the field. Since 2018, for example, she has engaged with the environmental charity One Tree Planted on a mission to fund the planting of 8888 trees in the Amazon, a goal she is already close to realising. Linked to the initiative, Baker’s mixed medium artwork An Open Dialogue with Nature, 2019, presents an ethereal tree sculpture given magnetic presence through light and sound. A ghostly reminder of the destructive impact of deforestation, the installation reuses frequencies from A Letter to Mother Earth and imagines nature reciprocating a response.
Letter To Mother Earth Installation. 26-28 Jul 2019, Exhibited at Tate Modern London
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
Her Letter to Mother Earth comes in the form of a sound wave letter as she sends an open apology for the last 100 years of destruction and neglect on behalf of the human race. After taking part in ceremonies with shamans in the Amazon Jungle, the artist felt a profound connection and understanding of the wisdom of plants. Inspired by plant frequencies, participants are invited to create sound wave messages to express their connection to nature, resulting in the creation of visual digital art. The artist gifts tree seeds via test tubes with tree-like hand-blown roots.
Plant bioacoustics refers to the creation of sound waves by plants. The intelligent communication between plants, trees and humans is a new frontier of exploration, as the concept of plant consciousness; that plants have the awareness to make decisions and communicate with each other, is fast gaining ground in the scientific world. Tree consciousness operates up to 24 Htz, meaning that it falls within the range of human consciousness.
Prospero’s Explosion , 2018
Photo credit: Lauren Baker Studio
Much of Baker’s art considers the links between creation and destruction, often choosing materials, surfaces and textures which make reference to processes of damage and decay. The glass tubes of her neon pieces, for example, entail a fragility that contrasts with the confident messages they project. It is an idea that carries through to the fact that all physical bodies, however large or complex, can be on the cusp of destruction, either from within or without, as necessitated by their entropic potential to enter a state of irreversible disorder. Equally important for Baker, though, is the understanding that from disorder new forms can be created, unleashing the potential for ‘beauty born from destruction and chaos’.
As part of the Hubble-inspired series, The Immensity of the Universe, one of the most intriguing ways Baker has engaged with creation and destruction is through her ‘Explosion’ artworks, created by literally blowing up books. In the safety of a quarry hired for the purpose, Baker exploded books spanning philosophy, literature and science that all explore aspects of creation. Baker brought the pieces of each book back together to present in a new form, and used chemicals to further age and decay some of the copies, before growing crystals on their tarnished pages. Intended as a way to explore ideas around the Big Bang, the results have a magical quality, hinting at secrets and revelations contained inside the objects that once were books.
Diverse trains of thought criss-cross Baker’s practice, but a common thread is the notion of connecting the individual - as well as a collective ‘us’ - with manifestations of the infinite and universal, inviting her audience to feel at one with creation. At the risk of over-simplifying a broad practice, Baker’s overarching message might be to say that you are an individual, able to grasp inner sources of strength, but you are also part of a greater we, and we are all standing on a rock in space. In the blackness of that space, Baker’s artworks are like lights turning on and off, reminding us of the energy, frequencies and vibrations that permeate the darkness.
For more information please visit Lauren Baker Art
All images courtesy of © 2020 Lauren Baker