Visual artist Miguel Angel Murgueytio talks spatiality and painting with light.
Ecuadorian-based creative Miguel Angel Murgueytio is a man wearing many hats. As an artist, educator, and researcher Miguel’s creative portfolio spans many immersive interdisciplinary projects, including scenography, audio-visual, light, and interactive multimedia installations.
Within the electronic music space, he has designed installations for renowned music artist Green Velvet and enhanced the visual elements of clubs such as Lost Beach and Club Blues. Additionally, his installations have been showcased worldwide at festivals such as The Collection Paris, Monopol Berlin, Fiesta De La Luz, and Heart Ibiza, to name a few.
Miguel’s relationship with education has been vital in helping him perfect his craft. Working his way up from student to professor at PUCE and USFQ has allowed him to exist in a world of constant learning, sharing his unique approach to spatial design with the next generation whilst simultaneously unpacking and refining his prior knowledge.
We recently spoke with Miguel who shared his thought process around the concept of spatiality and how he uses it to create perception-altering works of art.
Where did your fascination for art and technology begin?
I originally studied visual arts at university. My programming and digital art classes are where I first approached the relationship between art and technology. Afterwards, I studied for a master’s degree in Multimedia Creation and Serious Game in Barcelona.
Due to its high cultural demand, the city was key to my development. While I was there, I was able to learn a lot from workshops, conferences, and festivals. These experiences led me to reflect on new media art and its possibilities within the artistic field.
I returned to Ecuador with this new knowledge and began to develop art and technology projects. The first was a work selected for Fiesta de la Luz. This project took a lot of research as well as hardware and software development for the creation of light installations. After participating in the festival, I created my research and artistic creation studio. Since then, I have participated in various festivals, events, exhibitions, corporate and business projects.
To this day, I’m still fascinated with technology experimentation and exploration. The idea that there will always be new and different means to use in future projects is exhilarating to me.
How would you define your artistic style?
I define my artwork as audio-visual, light or visual experiences. My style is based on the exploration of light, space, darkness, scale, time and how new realities can be created by altering the daily perception of the public?
I have always thought that it’s unnecessary to intervene in a space by loading it with visual content to express and generate sensations. I am more inclined to minimalist proposals, geometric shapes, and their dynamism. Less is more, as they say.
On your website, you talk about your interest in spatiality. What is your approach when developing a narrative?
Spatiality is one of the main factors in my artistic process. For me, space is canvas, and light is painting. Light interventions in place of complete darkness can build, transform, and unveil new forms, new sensations, and new perspectives. I define space as the starting point of my creation process. That’s why my work can mostly be defined as site-specific. If you look at them, most cannot exist within another space because their design is based on the characteristics of the place in which they were built.
We really enjoyed your installation in The Cave area at Lost Beach. Can you describe your creative process when designing the commission?
The process always starts with drawings, architectural plans, and the context of the space. From there, I take the approach of travelling, drawing, measuring, and inhabiting the space as many times as necessary and then transfer that information to 3D.
In this case, I visited The Cave several times, taking many photographs, measurements, and drawings. After sketching different creative proposals, I took it to virtuality – a process of converting all this information into 3D modelling and renderings. It is within that virtual field where I have found the best approach to physical reality. I use digital tools that allow me to simulate the proposal as accuratley as possible.
Subsequently, the assembly and technical analysis process begins. The work is built from the recorded information and the proposal created from the virtual world.
Talk to us about your Raíces installation. What was the inspiration behind the project?
Raíces is an immersive audio-visual installation that puts nature in dialogue with the public through technology. The visual content was created through computer procedural graphics using real data from Fundación Futuro’s Carbon Footprint Compensation Program. Through synchronised shapes, textures, colours, data and sounds, the work sensitises the public about the importance of conservation and the sustainability of the environment.
Are there any other new media artists whose work you enjoy?
I’m interested in the artistic work of those who explore light and new media as essential tools of their creative process. Artists like James Turrel, Anthony McCall, and Antoni Arola, among others, are ones whose work I enjoy.
What’s next for Miguel Angel Murgueytio?
I’m willing to continue in the experimentation field, explore the unknown, use different technologies, and progress my research and artistic creation by building new multisensory and immersive experiences for the public in specific spaces.
I have several projects on the way, many of which are personal inquiries and others in collaboration with other art fields such as theatre, dance, and music, as well as commission projects in the business, corporate and institutional spheres.
Hopefully, my future works will have some different technology that I have not used before. For me, that’s what it’s about. To continue exploration of the possibilities of new media and light in their different manifestations.
