bio
Seth Riskin is a visual artist exploring perception through the instrument of light.
Riskin redefines ‘light art’ as a means of revealing perception to itself. His original tools reduce light to “geometric minima,” enabling Riskin to shape perceptions of space and time. Since 1987, he has worked at MIT in dialogue with scientists, engineers and scholars from a range of adjacent fields. Penetrating to the foundation of visual experience, Riskin’s work represents the intersection of visual art and vision neuroscience, a new space of interacting practice and theory that he is actively unfolding in collaboration.
Light Dance is the primary form of Riskin’s work.
Riskin’s Light Dance art form uses light in the manner of vision, cast from the artist’s body to the boundaries of a dark room. In these silent, space-defining performances, Riskin sweeps out radial geometries that encompass viewers in a new perceptual experience.
“Turning vision inside out,” Riskin makes low-level perceptual responses accessible to conscious study.
Light is the means, but Riskin sees perception as his medium. His light stimuli do not illuminate; they become objects of perception. Working with these perceptual units in situ, he “speaks” to the early visual system of the human brain. Riskin sees his work as part of the long, artistic tradition of exploring perception by physical creation, a legacy he builds upon with technology, turning light into reflexive experiences of vision.
Seth Riskin, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, photo by Ellen Sebring, Jan. 21, 2016
Seth Riskin earned PhD at the Center for Advanced Integrative Arts (CAiiA) at Plymouth University in England, in 2021, and a Masters degree at MIT in 1989 at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) under the direction of German artist Otto Piene, a leading figure in technology-based art.
Riskin is the founding manager of the MIT Museum Studio and Compton Gallery, a program that connects the unique learning opportunities of the MIT Museum to the broader MIT, innovating areas of research, education, and exhibitions.
He co-teaches the course “Vision in Neuroscience and Art,” funded by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) with a Mellon Faculty Grant. Offered through the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the course is co-taught in the MIT Museum Studio by Professor Pawan Sinha, Sarah Schwettmann, and Riskin. Students work with core neural and computational concepts in vision and the use of art to “perceive perception,” concluding with a public exhibition of projects in the Compton Gallery.
In 2020 and 2021, Riskin created light video artworks for the series, Silo Solos, which he performed in the Otto Piene light silo at the Goldring-Piene Art Farm, Groton, Massachusetts. Silo Solos premiered as part of the international broadcasts of B3 Biennials of the Moving Image in Frankfurt, Germany.
resume (PDF)
beginnings…
Riskin on parallel bars with light apparatus.
Riskin originally came to MIT in 1986 to coach the women’s gymnastics team which, in part, inspired his subsequent experiments with light art based in movement of the body:
“Movement experience was profound for me, partly because, since a child, I was training in gymnastics with my identical twin brother—watching him and being watched by him. We went to college together, coached each other and competed together. This was a distinct advantage. In fact—true story—we tied for that NCAA title on our specialty, the parallel bars. To see essentially a clone of myself performing was to experience the movement from within and without at once. This raised significant questions about the limits of the self-experience, the boundary between subjective and objective realities, and so forth. I think that’s fundamentally why I wanted to advance my art in this way, to transcend the limits of my body with light and share the twin experience of expressive movement with others.
— Seth Riskin, interview by Sharon Lacey, October 2, 2017