Energy for the Sake of Retaining Power (Solar Symphony 16)

Haroon Mirza’s Energy for the Sake of Retaining Power (Solar Symphony 16) (2022) is a new sculptural installation specifically created for the Noor Riyadh Festival. It follows Mirza’s continued interest in the ‘Dyson Sphere’, a speculative photovoltaic megastructure that encompasses a star in order to exploit vast amounts of its energy. Mirza presents an arrangement of these photovoltaic panels that channel electricity from halogen lamps to further illuminate a planter populated by the local shrub Syrian Rue, facilitating its growth and photosynthesis. The plants and visitors are simultaneously serenaded by a generative composition of physiologically-stimulating frequencies governed by the electricity flowing through the system.