ArtSEA: Chasing the aurora borealis afterglow at Seattle art shows

Performing an ever-changing array of light and color — sometimes in the form of drippy swaths of hot pink, in other moments swirling into a ghostly green spiral — the show was a thrilling execution of shape, movement and color, all set to a soundtrack of oohs and ahhs uttered by neighboring viewers. 

ArtSEA: Notes on Northwest Culture is Cascade PBS’s weekly arts & culture newsletter.

As with any must-see arts event, those in attendance couldn’t help but shower social media with photos snapped on their phones. I loved watching my Instagram feed light up with pics, and sharing my own amateur attempts to convey the celestial dance. Like many, I stayed up late the following night, hoping to catch an encore of the solar-storm inspired laser show, but sadly, it was a one-night-only engagement. 

If, like me, you’re still hankering for more ethereal magic, you can get a taste in a few new art shows that happen to be perfectly timed with the aurora afterglow. 

Start at the National Nordic Museum, which recently acquired longtime Seattle artist Ginny Ruffner’s large light installation Project Aurora. The 20-by-10-foot-tall piece — originally installed in the two-story windows of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art — now towers over the Nordic museum’s lobby, its 34,560 LED bulbs emanating an eerie and ever-shifting green glow.

Ruffner brought her vision to life with the help of Ed Fries, an ex-Microsoft programmer who led the team who built the first Xbox, along with UW professor Wanda Gregory, also a former video-game wizard. The group worked to build a “neural network” that with AI assistance mimics the aurora borealis based on images of the phenomenon. Similar to the real thing, the lights in the piece dim and brighten, ripple and morph, changing the overall appearance about every 20 seconds and never repeating.

You can learn more about the artwork — now part of the National Nordic Museum’s permanent collection — from creators Ruffner, Fries and Gregory, who will discuss how it came together during a Project Aurora panel at the museum (May 23 at 6 p.m.).