LAPP-PRO makes the rest of us feel something.  We felt something when we visited them

and it seems like more and more people are starting to feel the power of their images.  It's not hard to understand why folks are attracted to LAPP-PRO's images.  It's exciting to see that they have gotten some TV play in their home town Bremen.  Check out the movie here.

     LAPP-PRO creates some of the most compelling and, dare I say, astonishing pictures I have seen.  They are full of Psychic Energy and Gestalt. Gestalt is often defined in English as: A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

     "Gestalt psychology is based on the observation that we often experience things that are not a part of our simple sensations...Furthermore, say the Gestalt psychologists, we are built to experience the structured whole as well as the individual sensations." (Dr. C. George Boree). 

     Now, I think these are apt descriptions for light painting in general, but especially for the images LAPP-PRO create.  Their pictures are much more than the sum of their parts.  The gestalt of LAPP-Pro is seen in each gesture, in every "brush stroke" they make. The unique nature of LAPP is that it is a whole body, kinesthetic, action/experience that is simultaneously technical, creative and developmental. The following is a quote from Dr. Gerald Grow:

     "The core elements of the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence are control of one's bodily motions and capacity to handle objects skillfully (206). Gardner elaborates to say that this intelligence also includes a sense of timing, a clear sense of the goal of a physical action, along with the ability to train responses so they become like reflexes. Along with these, you often find a high degree of fine-motor control and a gift for using whole body motions....Gardner cites a dancer's conviction that we all have the capacity "to apprehend directly" the actions, feelings, or dynamic abilities of other people, without help from words or pictures (228)" (Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. 1983. New York: Basic Books, 1985)

     So, I feel like all of these statements are pertinent to the analysis of LAPP-PRO's creations.  We can "apprehend directly" the actions and dynamic abilities of Jan and Jorge by deconstructing their motions.  Light painting allows us to deconstruct the artists' motions and the complexity (or simplicity) of their movements as they relate to the "whole."  Kinesthetic Intelligence and the "clear sense of the goal of a physical action" are definitely things we experienced in our time with LAPP.  The "goal" of their actions is both technical and conceptual and it is the unique interaction between these elements that makes LAPP so extremely and aggressively impactful.  They have a "clear sense" of the image they want to represent as well as the "high degree of fine-motor control and a gift for using whole body motions" to make it happen.  The magic comes from the intuition and psychic sensitivity to the subconscious, emotional, and psychological representations on their pictures.  A simple technical execution of light painting does not ensure an emotional response in the viewer in the same way that pure concept and gesture do not ensure a quallty image.  However, the thoughtful juxtaposition and interaction of these skills really does manifest a Gestalt that evokes both thoughts and feeling of a "higher order".  As a viewer we experience and then interact with their art on the same level at which it was created.  

     There is most definitely a "curve" to being able to analyze and fully experience LAPP-PRO's art.  The beauty is that, classically, the journey literally IS the destination.  Light painting marks the artists' literal physical passage and "kinesthetic intelligence." Like anything else it takes practice; practice to make and practice to completely appreciate.  Why does it take practice to appreciate it?  Well, one of the first questions people often ask when they see light painting is "how did they do that?" and sometimes the answer is simple.  But with LAPP-PRO's creations it is a complex process that is hard to decipher and challenging to deconstruct.  It requires some serious thought and analysis to begin to imagine exactly how these pictures could have possibly been made.  We, as viewers, imagine ways in which they must have moved, lights that could have been used etc....We create pictures, movies, in our minds as we imagine and "re-trace" their movements in 4 dimensions.  We "re-live" the journey they took through the frame, through time, to make the picture and we begin to "apprehend" their feelings and/or "dynamic abilities." Remember, the journey is the destination.  When watching light painting being made in real-time we only see the light in the literal and proverbial "Now".  We experience the process as a series of motions illuminated in increments and gone when the shutter clicks with no "real" image left.  The picture captures the motions, the journey, and when we see the image our understanding of the meaning of the artists' actions becomes clearer while simultaneously evoking something completely different than what we feel while watching the process.  

     Another important element to the Gestalt is the interaction with environment, but I'll save that for another article.