A:: Light, 1999
Pierre Huyghe
New York
Location: One Liberty Plaza, New York, NY 10006
Pierre Huyghe
A:: Light, 1999
Video game program, interface, joysticks, LED lights
Renowned artist Pierre Huyghe transposes the video game, Pong, onto the grid of a drop ceiling with this interactive installation in the lobby of One Liberty Plaza.
About the Artist
Pierre Huyghe (b. 1962, Paris) is one of the most influential contemporary artists of his generation, known for creating complex environments that merge living organisms, technology, narrative, and architecture into dynamic, evolving systems. His work redefines what an artwork or exhibition can be, blurring boundaries between fiction and reality, object and organism, and viewer and environment.
Huyghe has exhibited widely in major institutions, including an expansive 2014 retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museum Ludwig, Cologne. An acclaimed exhibition of his recent work, Pierre Hughye: Liminal, was on view in 2024 at the Pinault Collection – Punta della Dogana, Venice, and traveled to the Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul. Huyghe has participated in landmark events such as Documenta 13 and the Venice Biennale, where he received a Special Jury Prize. His many honors include the Guggenheim’s Hugo Boss Prize (2002), the Smithsonian’s James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize (2010), the Kurt Schwitters Prize (2015), and the Nasher Prize (2017).
About the Work
“A:: Light” takes as its starting point the first commercially successful video game, Pong, which simulates a game of ping pong as each player controls a paddle that moves across the left or right
side of the screen. Pierre Huyghe transposes this onto the grid of a drop ceiling, with each ceiling tile corresponding to a pixel on the gameboard and wired controllers inviting visitors to play. As two people engage, the space is transformed: illuminated tiles flash on and off as the paddles move back and forth across the ceiling, bouncing the cursor across the lobby and evoking both the wonder of early video games and a digitized, cybernetic future.
“A:: Light” premiered in 1999 at the Vienna Secession – a landmark of twentieth century architecture with decorative friezes by Gustav Klimt – and was subsequently shown as the centerpiece of the French Pavilion at the 2001 Venice Biennale.