Lukas Truniger
synthetic natures & lifelike infrastructures
Participations
Implausible Rainbows (2026)
Selected Artworks
Archives of infinite Perspectives
Lost in rasterized Translation
Undergrown
Implausible rainbows: an exercise in skyscaping
Refracted Ballroom
An automated Self (v0.1 non-interactive)
Hedonistic Treadmill
Distributive intelligence | A group mind
Links
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vimeo
Bio
Lukas Truniger is a visual artist, electronic composer and creative technologist, working with generative media in the broadest sense. He creates singular experiences challenging the modalities of perception, taking advantage of the mimetic nature of technology to reveal the materiality of our digital societies. His work pinpoints at unseen connections of natural, cultural and artificial system, further blurring their supposed division. He explores latent realities through emergent choreographies and systemic narratives, which can take the form of multimedia installations, speculative infrastructures, and audiovisual performances.
Born in Zürich (CH), he lives and works in Paris. He obtained a music degree from the Robert Schumann conservatory, Institute of Music and Media (IMM) in Düsseldorf (D) and a post gradual diploma in fine arts from Le Fresnoy – studio national des arts contemporains in Tourcoing (F).
His work has been shown internationally since 2016 at institutions such as the LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Gijón), HeK – House of Electronic Arts (Basel), West Kowloon Cultural District (Hong Kong), V2_ (Rotterdam), Ludwig Museum (Budapest), Pearl Art Museum (Shanghai), Fondation Vasarely (Aix-en-Provence), Harvestworks (New York City) and La Villette (Paris) as well as at various festivals:
Days of Art&Science (Leiden), Lost Art (Berlin), Sónar+D (Barcelona), Nuit Blanche (Paris), MMMAD Festival (Madrid), Athens Digital Arts Festival, Quai des Savoirs (Toulouse), Blooming Festival (Pergola), Light Art Grindelwald, Ars Electronica (Linz), Mapping Festival(Geneva), Mirage Festival (Lyon), Burning Man (Nevada), Retune Festival (Berlin), Lethargy Festival (Zürich), Dark Circuits Festival (New York City), Variation Media Art Fair (Paris), Die Digitale (Düsseldorf), Sonica (Glasgow), International Digital Arts Biennial / BIAN (Montreal), International Symposium for Electronic Arts / ISEA (Paris and Hong Kong), Marrakech Biennale and E-Fest (Tunis).
He was awarded with the Pax Art Award 2025 (Basel), Lumen Price 2024 (London), shortlisted for the Prix Cube 2016 (Paris) and has won the RUNWAY price in 2015 by Bipolar, a production and distribution agency for digital art located in Montpellier.
Installation: Implausible Rainbows | Responsive Dreams 2026
↑ Click on the image below to play the video
The installation recreates naturally occurring optical atmospheric phenomena commonly referred to as rainbows by artificial means. It raises different questions on how we interact with our environment and explores the inherently human desire to imitate as well as our delusion to eventually control nature.
The installation uses custom LEP light sources (Laser Excited Phosphor), diffraction gratings and rotating mirrors to create slowly moving artificial rainbow phenomena. A multichannel sound loop emphasizes this ever-changing landscape with a generative audio spatialization.
Inspired by the optical phenomena observed in our atmosphere, such as rainbows, halos and solar coronae, the piece attempts to extrapolate these astonishing natural wonders into tangible synthetic phenomena.
Using multiple highly-collimated light sources and specialized optics, the installation creates synthetic rainbows that move and transform slowly in the exhibition space. Based on the coupled motions of our solar system, it uses periodic rotations of both sound and light to produce an ever evolving environment.
The piece plays with the perception of the visitors who navigate the space, contemplating each rainbow from different positions. As is the case for their natural analogs, the synthetic optical phenomena are dependent on the observer’s position. The forms and dependencies differ from those found in nature, thus raising fundamental questions about our shared conceptions of reality. The installation explores how we interact with our environment and exposes the intrinsic human desire to imitate, as well as to exert control over nature.
The installation is appropriating concepts from climate engineering, geoengineering and weather control for an artistic experience. Weather control has historically been a crucial issue of military and geopolitical concern. While other atmospheric phenomena such as clouds feature a highly geostrategic interest in terms of access to water and cooling, rainbows are phenomena of pure aesthetic and poetic interest.
The work further speculates on how these phenomena might appear in another world or in a future where atmospheric conditions are altered, for example: how would the rainbow of an aging and cooling sun look?
Concept & realization: Lukas Truniger & Bruce Yoder
This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, co-funded by the European Union.
This presentation is co-funded by LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial.
Distributive intelligence | A group mind - Lukas Truniger
