Sunstar, an art/science work by Liliane Lijn, artist, and John Vallerga, astrophysicist at UC Berkeley Space Science Lab, is a large-scale and far-reaching daytime installation sited on the historic 150’ Solar Tower on Mount Wilson. Using engineered glass prisms and specially designed code, a spray of diffracted sunlight is projected to specific locations, making the solar spectrum visible just at the meeting point of earth and sky in the form of a sparkling star. On loan to Mount Wilson Observatory, Sunstar will be beaming on selected locations participating in Pasadena’s AxS Festival: City as Wunderkammer, including ArtCenter’s Hillside Campus.

Sunstar will be shining its light on ArtCenter on the following schedule:

• Friday, November 2—4:30 p.m. to sunset
• Monday, November 5—2 p.m. to sunset
• Tuesday, November 6—11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

An array of six prisms, Sunstar takes incoming sunlight and refracts it, bending the light and spreading it into a spectrum–all the colors of the rainbow. It is mounted near the top of the Observatory’s 150-foot Solar Telescope Tower. With motion controls, it can be remotely directed to project the spectrum to a specific point in the Los Angeles basin. An observer below will see an intense point of light in a single wavelength, shining like a brilliant jewel from the ridgeline of Mount Wilson, 5800 feet above in the San Gabriel Mountains. The prisms can be moved to change the color of light an observer sees, or the observer can walk in one direction or another to change the color. In this case, the observer is actually walking across a giant spectrum some 250 yards long. While still very bright, at the great distances involved, it is perfectly safe to look at a single wavelength of sunlight.

The A×S Festival is a regional celebration of art and science, based in Pasadena and surrounding communities. While often described as occupying opposite ends of the spectrum, art and science are instead understood to be powerful engines of contemporary culture. As a thematic pivoting point, A×S provides opportunities for discovering the fascinations, curiosities, and tensions ignited by pondering integrations of art and science.

A complete schedule of events and more about the AxS Festival can be found on its website, 2018 A×S Festival.