I speak the bright hours, I am silent about the cloudy ones

A sculpture that turns the vitrine of 1fa9f.space in Marseille into a light-sensitive instrument. Installed in the narrow window on rue Paradis, the work treats the façade as both sensor and display, capturing the shifting brightness of day and night. A light sensor positioned near the glass continuously measures ambient light and controls vertical ultraviolet LED strips mounted toward the back of the vitrine. Behind them, a series of embossed aluminium panels coated with white photochromic pigment slowly turn orange under ultraviolet exposure. Panels closer to the light—and exposed for longer durations—develop deeper colour, gradually forming a chromatic record of the day’s brightness. The work takes its title from a Latin inscription found on Marseille’s historic sundials, Lucidos dico, taceo nubilas—“I speak the bright hours, I am silent about the cloudy ones.” Rather than marking time directly, the installation allows sunlight and weather to inscribe themselves onto reactive surfaces, translating daylight into a slow modulation of colour.