Twist and Shine by Kaleider has found its niche of actually playable interactive lightartwork, that is also nice to watch and certainly looks good in pictures. I find the interactivity the most remarkable part of the artwork: it’s not overdone, it’s built with the audience in mind and leaves room for the imagination. Visually the piece is impressive, especially en masse and well-placed, but there is also room for a more profound use of colour.
Do touch the art
Twist and Shine consists of rubik snake -like constructions, that the audience can twist to build their own artworks, and / or play with them. As you can guess from the name, the snakes shine as well, slowly changing their colours in non-synchronised order.
Interactivity in light art is often technology-based, and it might be somewhat complicated for the audience to understand how it works. More than once I’ve seen a desperate artist biting their nails, observing the audience waving, jumping and shouting about, not quite getting how to interact with the piece. And if they do, they probably don’t realize how exactly their action makes any difference.
With Twist and Shine, the only barrier to overcome is to believe you actually are allowed to touch (and twist) art. After that, it is very clear what to do and apart from safety, there are no rules nor is there a right way to interact. You build whatever you want to build.
One could think that this interactivity is targeted especially for kids – which it might be – but it did appeal to adults alike. This might be for nostalgic rubik-serpentine reasons, at least partly. The artwork also invited to cooperation, and I’ve seen a lot of happy families and friend-making while observing it. There’s also something very communal in the fact that one starts where the previous player left off and builds on it.
More is more…
I do admit being a fan of minimalism, but sometimes volume is essential for an art piece. I visit loads of light festivals, so I have had the chance to follow the evolution of Twist and Shine's growth, and significance of its placement. It shows just how numbers sometimes do matter, as do the surroundings.
I first saw Twist and Shine in Hämeenlinna, Finland, at Valoilmiö Festival in 2023. The artwork was placed on the main square, an exposed and busy site. The area was temporarily fenced, which didn’t quite add to its cosiness. At that point, there were about twenty twistable snakes – let’s call them items, shall we. In the plain square, the interactivity of the items wasn’t too obvious, since in their sparseness, they looked more like art pieces to be observed than tools to be played with. People still did, after some enticement.
My next encounter with Twist and Shine was in Rauma, at Lumen festival in 2025. Even though the number of items was the same, the site was a semi-secluded inner yard, a consistent place for playing. And play people did, even if some ushering was needed.
In Lux Helsinki in 2026 the number of items was rocketed to one hundred. The area was a small park, peaceful and secured by snowdrifts. The abundance of material made it easy to grab one without hesitation and start playing. Even I took my turn in proving the functionality of the shiny snakes. The volume also made the artwork turn into an environment to jump in instead just watching it from a distance.
… as is less
I am usually somewhat suspicious about the highly over-used rainbow effect of programmable led lights. Using every possible hue just because you can is not always the most elegant choice. In this case, however, the sheer volume of units makes the artwork more of a generally and cheerfully colourful entity than an annoyingly blinking object – here, too, the volume works for the good of the art piece.
On the other hand, I’d love to see other, more confined colour editions, too. Given a chance and technics allowing, Twist and Shine could evolve into a piece of three-dimensional, changing and moving colour composition, something I can’t recall seeing before. But, even if I'll never get my artsy colours version, I'll be happy, and most likely, to see Twist and Shine and again.
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