|
The first and predominant inspiration for George Stadnik’s work was the experience of Opus 158, a Lumia composition by Thomas Wilfred, seen by Stadnik in 1968 at MoMA in New York City. Four years later, in 1972 Stadnik received a BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University and began to create his own Lumia performances for the annual Avant Garde Festivals in NYC. In 1978, he established a Lumiagraph studio in Worcester, Massachusetts—essentially a 10’x12’x8’ light-tight room or camera obscura—where he made mathematically-based Lumia or light compositions and recorded them directly as unique still images on film, which were exhibited in galleries in the United States and Europe. During this period, Stadnik was awarded a grant from the Rockefeller foundation to create a piece for the WGBH New Television Workshop in Waterdown Massachusetts, produced numerous Lumia performances for galleries and planetariums and patented a photon light guitar. Due to the logistical limitations posed by the physical Lumia device, Stadnik turned to commercial software as an alternative method of production in the 1980s. Currently, Stadnik continues to create digital Lumia simulations using programs such as Maya 5.0 with Mental Ray, Final Cut Pro and DVD Pro Studio and a Macintosh computer.
|
