Reinvention is a right that we can all practise freely whenever and however we desire. Even if you’ve been involved in an electro-pop band that has offered incendiary anthems to several transversal generations, you can suddenly enchant the world again with a new totally unexpected artistic side. And that is precisely what has been happening recently with Reuben Wu, whom many may know as one of the members of Ladytron and, therefore, as the author of incontestable hits like Destroy Everything You Touch or Seventeen… But now many will know him as one of the biggest names in drone art. If such a thing even exists.
THE REINVENTION OF REUBEN WU (VIA DRONES)
Reuben Wu is momentarily stepping away from Ladytron, the band he’s been in for a few decades now, to open a new parallel career in which he photographs the traces of LED lights left by drones on top of surreal landscapes. It’s sort of a 2.0 version of Land Art which the artist prefers to label as aeroglyphs.
He intends to create an echo of time and space, fragments of memory and imagination. This is what he’s exploring in photography series like Aeroglyphs or Lux Noctis, in which he shows a special predilection for a common moment and place. The moment is the night time, which is when the drones’ LED traces can shine the best. And the place is wherever there is no trace of humans, especially deserts and natural landscapes that his drones inhabit as angelic creatures that have come to Earth to convey a message that each person must decipher according to their circumstances.
It’s as if Reuben Wu has opened the gates towards a new era of Land Art in which space can be used without needing to mess with it. A vision of a future in which technology serves to embellish the world… Just as Ladytron had always anticipated. Because, in the end, everything’s connected.
