Light as Event: From Survage's Color Rhythm to the Immersive Field of Lux Aeterna

This paper explores the transformation of abstract visual art into immersive light-sound environments, tracing a conceptual lineage from early twentieth-century experiments to contemporary perceptual systems. Beginning with the work of Leopold Survage and his theory of Color Rhythm (1914), the study examines the emergence of time-based visual abstraction as a structural analogue to music. Survage’s model, based on the interaction of color, form, and rhythm, represents one of the earliest systematic attempts to construct a visual language unfolding in time. However, its realization remained limited by the technical conditions of cinematic projection and planar representation. The article argues that a full development of this trajectory becomes possible only within immersive environments, particularly in the Lux Aeterna Theatre. Here, light is no longer treated as an image or representational medium, but as a spatial and temporal field in which perception itself becomes embedded. Through the use of laser interference, polychromatic light structures, and multichannel sound, Lux Aeterna establishes a form of artistic practice based on dynamic perceptual environments rather than static compositions. The theoretical framework of the study draws on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the visual theory of György Kepes, interpreting perception as an embodied field and light as an active structuring force. Within this framework, immersive art is understood not as representation, but as the organization of perceptual conditions. The paper further extends this perspective through contemporary neuroaesthetics, introducing the VGORAY system as an applied light-sound platform. By combining structured light environments and spatial sound, VGORAY demonstrates how immersive artistic principles can influence attention, emotional regulation, and cognitive coherence. The study concludes that the transition from color rhythm to interference light marks a fundamental epistemic shift: from representation to participation, from image to field, and from observation to embodied experience. In this context, immersive light-sound environments emerge as a distinct artistic paradigm at the intersection of art, perception, and cognitive transformation.