Lucid Stead by artist Phillip K. Smith III illuminates Joshua Tree, California

Now here's a little weekend inspiration. "Lucid Stead" is an art installation by Phillip K. Smith, III in the beautiful desert landscape of Joshua Tree in California.

With some mirrors, LED lights, custom built electronic equipment, and Arduino programming, Smith transformed a 70-year-old homesteader shack into an architecture piece that complements and contrasts with its peaceful environment throughout the entire day.

Lucid Stead from lou mora on Vimeo.

The project was intended to be revealed to a couple viewers during a two-day event last month, but instead became a two-weekend event with over 400 visitors. Since then, Lucid Stead has received plenty of national attention.

Get enlightened with some photos below.

Artist's statement:

"After the long, dusty, bumpy, anxious trip out into the far edges of Joshua Tree, you open your car door and for the first time experience the quiet of the desert. It’s at that point that you realize you are in a place that is highly different than where you just came from.

Lucid Stead is about tapping into the quiet and the pace of change of the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the desert, the project begins to unfold before you. It reveals that it is about light and shadow, reflected light, projected light, and change."

"In much of my work, I like to interact with the movement of the sun so that the artwork is in a constant state of change from sunrise to 9am to noon to 3am to 6pm and into the evening. With Lucid Stead, the movement of the sun reflects banded reflections of light across the desert landscape, while various cracks and openings reveal themselves within the structure."

"Even the shifting shadow of the entire structure on the desert floor is as present as the massing of the shack itself, within the raw canvas of the desert.The desert itself is as used as reflected light…as actual material within this project. It is a medium that is being placed onto the skin of the 70-year old homesteader shack. The reflections, contained within their crisp, geometric bands and rectangles contrasts with the splintering bone-dry wood siding."

"This contrast is a commonality in my work, where I often merge highly precise, geometric, zero tolerance forms with material or experience that is highly organic or in a state of change…something that you cannot hold on to...that slips between your fingers."

"Projected light emerges at dusk and moves into the evening. The four window openings and the doorway of Lucid Stead all become crisp rectangular fields of color, floating in the desert night."

"White light, projected from the inside of the shack outward, highlights the cracks between the mirrored siding and the wood siding, wrapping the shack in lines of light. This white light reveals, through silhouette, the structure of the shack itself as the 2x4’s and diagonal bracing become present on the skin of the shack."

"The color of the door and window openings are set at a pace of change where one might question whether they are actually changing colors."

"One might see blue, red, and yellow…and continue to see those colors. But looking down and walking ten feet to a new location reveals that the windows are now orange, purple and green."

"This questioning of and awareness of change, ultimately, is about the alignment of this project with the pace of change occurring within the desert. Through the process of slowing down and opening yourself to the quiet, only then can you really see and hear in ways that you normally could not."

All images courtesy of Phillip K. Smith, III.

Click the thumbnails below to see additional photos.