Light Codes

Pigment, pulse and phōs. Exhibition presenting light as language - reading the signals that pass between nature, the body, and technology.

House of Annetta · Spitalfields

Reserve a place

The Exhibition

The experience unfolds through layers of reception. A series of monochromatic works, created through layered organic textures and natural pigments made from plants, minerals, soil, crystals and meteorites, explores how material can hold atmosphere, sensation and trace. Built slowly, layer by layer, each piece reveals subtle shifts in tone, depth and presence. Alongside these works, digital experiments capture the viewer’s pulse in real time, translating biological rhythm into moving visual waves. This dialogue between the still and the live extends into the firefly forest, where a remembered encounter with bioluminescence becomes a shared field of movement, flicker and afterimage. The work surrounds the viewer with shifting traces that feel both organic and digital. Rather than asking visitors to decode everything intellectually, Light Codes invites a slower form of attention: looking quietly, noticing breath, pulse, atmosphere and emotional charge. The exhibition becomes a space where body, nature, memory and digital feedback meet. This meeting feels especially resonant at House of Annetta, the former home of Annetta Pedretti and a site associated with cybernetic research, feedback and living systems. In this context, Light Codes adds a new layer to the building’s history of relation, response and exchange.

Programme

The works are best experienced in person. Until the exhibition opens, this is only a glimpse — in light and material.

01 Thu 16 July Opening Night Private view · by RSVP 6:30–9pm
02 Fri 17-Sat 18 July General admission Open to all 11am–5pm
03 Fri 17 July Friday Lates Evening opening · Bring own drinks · by RSVP 5–9pm
04 Sat 18 July Workshop Kundalini Activation 10–11:15am

Reserve a place Full works on view 16–18 July 2026

How do we download and translate the signals that pass between nature, the body, and technology?

Luna-Nera (Portal) · detail

PulseFeedback

A digital experiment reads your pulse through a camera and renders it as live ‘pulse prints’ — your own biological rhythm, translated into shifting waves of light. The work only completes itself when you stand before it.

Experienced live · in the room

Firefly Forest

A spatial installation that dissolves a forest and river into darkness through a timelapse of the sun’s descent — revealing a dense, bioluminescent architecture and surrounding the viewer in a communal organic signal.

Installation · in development

In the studio

Each piece is built slowly — layer over layer of natural pigment, light read and returned through the body and the hand.

Portrait to come

Florence Dassonville

Artist

Florence Dassonville is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist working across raw materials, natural pigments, and intuitive processes. Born into a lineage of artists, creation has been a constant current. Based in London, her journey through auction houses, museums, and now within the Royal Academy of Arts continues to shape her visual language, immersing her in a dialogue with both historical and emerging practices. Her work is deeply embodied. Using self-made natural binders and pigments, Florence’s work is deeply embodied. Using self-made natural binders and pigments, she enters heightened intuitive states to translate the unseen into form - bringing fragments of the unconscious into tangible presence. Each piece acts as a conduit: raw, energetic, and intentionally unrefined. “People o

Portrait to come

Steven Irby

Artist

Steven Irby is a London-based developer and experimental digital creator whose work moves between technology, memory, animals, nostalgia and shared digital experience. His projects often transform simple digital interactions into small worlds people can enter together. For Light Codes, Steven contributes works that explore how digital systems can hold feeling — from live pulse-responsive visuals to an immersive firefly forest shaped by remembered light.

House of Annetta

Light Codes is presented at the House of Annetta — the former home of cybernetician Annetta Pedretti, a site historically defined by the study of self-regulating systems and recursive feedback. The exhibition extends the building’s identity as a living, cybernetic organism, adding a new layer to its history of relation and language.

Dates: 16–18 July 2026
Address: House of Annetta, Spitalfields, London
Getting there: Nearest: Liverpool Street station & Shoreditch High Street overground
Access: Step-free access is available into the house via a small ramp. Some rooms within the building include steps or restricted circulation space, so full access throughout may be limited.
Admission: Free · by RSVP

On colour & access

Light Codes is a largely monochrome exhibition. It does not depend on colour alone to carry meaning; instead it works through contrast, pulse, rhythm, movement, and atmosphere. Even where points of light appear within darkness, the work is intended to be read through intensity and presence as much as colour.

On materials

The paintings are built from natural pigments — plants, minerals, soil, crystals, and meteorites — layered slowly to hold light, depth, and atmosphere. The digital works continue this inquiry through code, projection, and responsive interfaces, where programmed systems turn light, touch, and sensation into image and feedback.

Reserve a place

Thursday 16 July, 6:30–9pm. A private view to open the exhibition — free, by RSVP. Places are limited.

When: 16–18 July 2026
Where: House of Annetta · Spitalfields

The exhibition is also open free, no RSVP needed — Friday 11am–5pm and Saturday 11:30am–5pm.