In the ‘Symmetrium’ series, Niko Luoma focuses on the spatiality of time, order and colour. The works included in this series have thousands of organised straight and curved lines of coloured light. The artist’s aim was to get the maximum out of his instrument; the camera and the film and also to slow down the photograph. Luoma tried to stretch the borders of how far the photo­graphic negative can be pushed in regards to information absorbed. To reduce the photographic process into its essentials, to light, light sensitive materials and the lens, to control the qualities of light, he dove into process of slowly built visual mantras. These multiple exposed negatives have thousands of exposures. In the Symmetrium series, Luoma uses light in a way that a painter would layer colours, in developing the depth behind the surface of the image either building it up from the center of the film to the edges or from edges to the center. It is no longer just a picture but a blueprint for a process of thinking and counting.

The starting point or the plan and idea of each ‘Symmetrium’ work is based on two-dimensionality, on height and length. There is no depth in the beginning since there is only one line. By the repetition and layering, the depth slowly appears and is always more of a result of a chance than an aim. The ‘Symmetrium’ series borrows from the musical composition strategies where singular events are arranged into systematic order that creates the visual entity but also to define the experience of space. Eline Radigue and Alvin Lucier were important sources of inspiration for Luoma in this series. Their compositions are measures of layered time and space which explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. The ‘Symmetrium’ works are visualisations of collateral experiences of being in time and space. The works are also free from the gravitational direction. They can be installed either vertically, horizontally, or even diagonally depending on the space in which they will be hung.