An alabaster Aurora lit beside a window at dusk

Lira family · Aurora

Sixteen planes, a single light

Sixteen 10 × 10 cm tiles set at different heights. Light escapes through the joints and draws a shadow that changes depending on where you look from.

Alabaster Aurora · 8:40 pm

Where it comes from

Cooling lava breaks into polygons

When a basalt flow cools, it contracts. And as it contracts it cracks, always the same way: into five- and six-sided columns running down to wherever the lava reached. Each one ends where it happened to end, a few centimetres above or below its neighbours.

At noon, from above, it looks like flat paving. The moment the sun drops, a thousand steps appear and the joints turn black. The same happens to a façade: the stone has not changed, the angle of the light has.

Aurora is that at 40 × 40. Sixteen real pieces, each at its own height, and the light coming out from between them. The relief is not printed or faked with shadows.

The same joint

One was made by cooling. The other, by us

Basalt columns seen from above, each cut off at a different height — Columnar basalt

A copper Aurora switched off, seen from the edge, sixteen tiles at different heights — Copper Aurora

Where you stand

Walk past it and you will not see the same thing twice

Walnut Head on A grid, and flat.
Walnut From the side The steps appear: each tile sits at its own height.
Alabaster Head on Another material, and it is a picture again.
Alabaster From the side And a wall again. It does not depend on the material: it depends on you.