Higher Power
San Clemente Palace, Venice
Everyone’s looking down. Look up
Chris Levine presents Higher Power, a new large-scale atmospheric installation marking the opening of the Venice Biennale 2026.
For seven consecutive nights (4-11 May 2026), audiences across Venice are invited to look skyward as a vast luminescent halo is projected into the night sky from San Clemente Palace Kempinski, transforming the city into a shared field of light and perception.
Created using a repurposed military-grade laser system, Higher Power emits a high-intensity beam engineered in collaboration with optical engineers in Germany. During development, test projections were detected from the International Space Station, approximately 250 miles above Earth, confirming the work’s atmospheric reach.
Projected vertically into the sky, the beam forms a geometrically precise halo through controlled scanning and atmospheric diffusion, with airborne particles acting as the medium through which light becomes visible. Suspended above Venice, the ring exists simultaneously as a physical phenomenon and a perceptual event. This is art at a cosmic scale.
Higher Power continues Levine’s long-standing exploration of light as both medium and message, working at the intersection of technology, perception and spirituality. The installation forms part of an ongoing series of atmospheric beam works, first unveiled at Noor Riyadh 2024 and subsequently presented at The Chancery Rosewood and Houghton Festival, each iteration expanding in scale and ambition.
The installation uses a single-frequency beam - a pure, coherent tone of light - designed to engage attention and induce a meditative state for the observer. At its core, the work is conceived as a collective act of looking. At a time when attention is increasingly directed downwards, Higher Power invites audiences to pause, step outside, and look up, transforming the sky into a shared space of connection across the city.
With full aviation clearance secured, the installation will be visible nightly until midnight throughout its run.
