Have you ever found yourself entranced by the lighting in a piece of art? What if the art was the lighting itself?

James Turrell premiered Perfectly Clear in 1991. The luminous installation is the centerpiece of Turrell’s exhibition, Into The Light, currently on display at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Perfectly Clear does not take on the traditional form of a painting or a sculpture; instead, it encompasses an entire room.

At first, the installation seems to simply be comprised of three white walls and a white peanut gallery, where the next group of visitors queue up. But during each 15-minute session, the three white walls begin to glow in various bright colors so that the white peanut gallery reflects the complementary color. For example, if the main three walls glow green, the peanut gallery turns a striking magenta. This would take some light science to explain, but essentially spectators are enveloped in seemingly endless color that changes at pre-programmed  intervals. After these dramatic color shifts, strobe lights flash. Many in the room may choose to place their hands over their eyes, yet find that the light shines through.

Patrons have enjoyed this dazzling experience for almost three decades, and the museum clearly takes great care to ensure its enduring quality. Visitors must promptly file out after the show to minimize any chance of disturbing the installation.

What makes Turrell’s strobe lights and visceral colors purposely distinct from everyday bright lighting–from, say, the light of our phones?

Such lustrous displays of lighting are not limited to the realm of fine art. Incredibles 2, better described as popular culture than highbrow art, also contains the use of strobe lights. So did my ninth-grade dance. Although some may argue that mainstream movies can in fact be fine art, there’s no disputing that my ninth-grade dance was definitely not.

However, what’s special about Turrell’s installation is the singularity of the lighting and the emphasis on the colors themselves. Light is commonly used to illuminate other elements, but in Perfectly Clear, it is the only element. Spectators are strictly fixated on the brightness of the color. This singularity forces them to question the importance of illumination in itself, inhabiting a space in one’s mind usually reserved for the object of illumination. It says: stop looking at the mountains and rivers; gaze right into the eye of the “sun”. Except in this case, the sun is a much more manageable human-made glow. And it will not blind you. Probably.

The experience is like walking around in someone’s consciousness. Where nothing exists but what you bring inside yourself. Where a sense of space and time collapse onto one another. It is dreamlike. It may involve an even greater sense of escape than do actual dreams, which often incorporate too many pieces of everyday life to be classified as true escape. Turrell provides a way for viewers to momentarily leave the mundane and focus on pure light.

In a 2008 interview with designboom, a daily web magazine focused on international industrial design, architecture, and art, Turrell reflected on his general artistic style. Here he revealed his creative intentions behind his use of light as a medium:

for me, light is nutrition, almost like food. and I’m concerned with the light inside people. when you close your eyes or dream, you see a different light than with your eyes open. we usually use light to illuminate the things around us. but I am interested in the very personal, inner light.

Turrell hopes to allow participants in his art the chance to find a light that exists beyond everyday life. He suggests that the physical light he works with will bring out a sort of inner illumination. Although no one can confirm that he universally provides this experience, this accurately describes how I felt while viewing Perfectly Clear. Since I walked into the exhibit before knowing his intentions and still experienced what he intended, this shows his mastery in realizing such a conceptual and idealistic relationship to light. Because I cannot live through others’ experiences of his art, I am left to wonder: did his art capture the outer light and transfer it inside me? Or did his art draw on the light that was already inside me to create the outer light? Whichever holds more truth, it is perfectly clear that his light art leaves many of its beholders in wonder.