I was first turned onto Jim Campbell’s work at the same show, Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977, where I found Anthony McCall’s work which I wrote about previously.

The piece that struck me at The Whitney was “White Circle,” an array of LEDs behind a piece of frosted glass that diffused their light. In the piece the viewer watched a figure moving across a landscape. The figure was composed of LEDs both unlit and partially lit. Alternatively, the field he moved across was built with the illuminated LEDs.

I was impressed by the simplicity of the elements involved in the piece. I was also struck by the way the glass allowed an image to register in the viewer’s mind, when if looking at the LED array sans diffuser one wouldn’t be able to recognize the figure. About these facets Rhizome said, his LED pieces “convey dynamic, complex images in a very minimal number of ‘pixels,’ or individual lights, making a statement about the limited amount of information needed by the mind, to perceive an image.”

Campbell’s got work up at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in Chelsea. The show opened last week, and runs though this Halloween. At the opening, I shot a quick video of one of the two pieces hanging, Grand Central Station No. 3, 2009:

Through the use of an angled diffuser, the example below showcases the difference between being able to comprehend an image formed through the diffusion vs. the more digital and thus imperceptible image without diffusion.

In this next piece, at one point the diffusion is removed, further highlighting the role the diffuser plays in the composition of the image:

Now that I’m fully inspired, I’ve got to find a kit of LEDs and get to building/programming.