Antonin Fourneau | Artist Talk

The Artist

Born in Marseille, France, Antonin Fourneau is a professor of new media design at EnsAD Paris. As an artist, Fourneau creates interactive art that references popular culture. In 2005, he was part of a collaborative project about early 20th-century funfairs called Eniarof. In 2012, he created the popular Waterlight Graffiti, which is still exhibited around the world today. And during a residency in New Zealand in 2017, he developed a sound-sensitive wall called Sonoscriptum. Fourneau’s has shown his work through the world, from his native France to China, Cuba, Germany, Guinea, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, and various locales in the United States. 

The Artwork

Inspired by retro Lite-Brite toys, Waterlight Graffiti is an electrical canvas, where water becomes the medium to draw or write ephemeral messages of light. Visitors use paintbrushes, spray bottles, or even dampened fingers to add moisture to a wall of 32,000 LEDs, which are illuminated when they come in contact with water. When applied to the frame of any individual LED, water creates an electric bridge, conducting the electricity required to light the embedded LED. The brightness varies by how much water is applied.
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