Spotlight

Hymn to the Big Wheel, Liz West

Summer Lights UK

London’s Canary Wharf has this summer been transformed into a prism of light, as it welcomes a series of dynamic artworks for the launch of Summer Lights. Created by the organisers of Canary Wharf’s Winter Lights and Connected by Light festivals, held during the year’s darkest months, Summer Lights instead celebrated the power of natural light for three months from June to August. Exploding into life from sunrise, the collection of artworks, from designers such as Liz West, toyStudio, Amberlights, Tine Bech Studio and Helena Doyle, used a combination of the sun and colour spectrums to project and celebrate light in its most natural form. While creating a world of intricate patterns and reflections that are visually dazzling, the installations also shone a light on a number of important messages. From sustainability, plastic pollution, and energy consumption to LQBTQIA+ and equality; these important themes were all highlighted through the language of light. Among the line-up of vibrant works was Ocean Rise by artist Aphra Shemza. Built using sustainable materials, the shape of the piece emulated a wave in the ocean, and was accompanied by a bespoke soundscape that visitors could access through a QR code. Another highlight was Whirl by Helena Doyle X Tom Cherry & Temple, which transformed the wind into a dynamic dance of colour and light. Sitting beneath the domed structure the audience could enjoy the mesmerising light show overhead. The festival also featured the latest Liz West installation, Hymn to the Big Wheel. The piece, inspired by the Massive Attack song of the same name, consisted of a multicoloured octagon nestled within a larger octagonal shape, and was designed to explore the illusion and physicality of colour and natural light in an urban space. Constructed using transparent coloured sheets, the work prompted the playful movement of visitors to explore the work in context with their surroundings. Elsewhere, toyStudio created two installations. The first, Circle of Light [Spectrum], saw the colours of the spectrum mapped out in relation to the sun’s path. From dawn to dusk, the reach of the coloured shadows moved depending on the angle of the sun. The second installation, Kilpi, was based on the celestial maps, and represented the constellations found in the skies above Canary Wharf, with perforations creating ever-changing shadows.

Shine Your Colours, Tine Bech Studio Whirl, Helena Doyle X Tom Cherry & Temple

Ocean Rise, Aphra Shemza Circle of Light [Spectrum], toyStudio

Amberlights’ Out of the Cocoon was a colourful, interactive seating installation that could be admired both from up close and afar. As visitors walked around the structure, they could see how the colours changed before their eyes. Tine Bech Studio’s Shine Your Colours featured six transparent coloured glass panels that created a space focusing on wellbeing. Martin Richman’s Round and Round, meanwhile, created a lively space full of reflecting and refracting shapes and colours via turning circles, bringing the Jubilee Park ponds to life. Open for eight weeks, visitors were invited to download the Summer Lights map to navigate their own journey around the installations, or alternatively download a specially made podcast to hear more about the inspiration behind each piece. Lucie Moore, Group Arts and Events Manager at Canary Wharf Group, said: “We are so excited to launch Summer Lights. We’ve been the pioneer of award-winning light festivals during the winter months, so to put a new twist on the theme of summer is only natural. “The artists involved are phenomenally talented and the innovation in their pieces to display light during the brightest months is something truly special. After a difficult year, we hope that this will be a summer highlight for people to visit.” www.canarywharf.com

Out of the Cocoon, Amberlights

Pics: James Medcraft, courtesy of Jason Bruges Studio

Latent Façade UK

Jason Bruges Studio has unveiled Latent Façade – a major public artwork for a new landmark building designed by architects Scott Brownrigg as part of the TusPark development at the Cambridge Science Park. Trinity College established the Park in response to a report by a University of Cambridge Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Nevill Mott, then Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics. Latent Façade was designed by Jason Bruges Studio as an exploration of how images are recorded, stored and creatively reimagined. Its hexagonal form references the work of Sir Nevill, who described ‘latent image’ – the process by which light transforms hexagonal silver halide crystals within photographic film to record an invisible ‘trace’. The artwork is also inspired by the pioneering research done by companies on the Cambridge Science Park into image capture and computer vision. The installation uses computer vision to track everyday movements, with motion detection cameras on the south west and south east façades becoming the artwork’s ‘eyes’. During the day, Latent Façade observes and mirrors pedestrian and vehicular movements in real-time. At night, or during quiet spells, it closes its eyes and ‘dreams’. Using bespoke, generative algorithms, the artwork samples a library of recorded visitor movements, randomly selecting one ‘trace’ at a time to be used as a seed for an evolving animated display. This behaviour recalls the human tendency to seek patterns – an innate condition that affords people the ability to comprehend reality but also sometimes results in the perception of images where none exist. Commissioned by Trinity College and TusPark, the installation has been created to find beauty in the mundane. By interpreting everyday actions as unpredictable, performative patterns, it explores how art can transform the built environment into a dynamic, ever-changing spectacle. www.jasonbruges.com

WHERE THERE IS LIGHT, THERE IS LIFE.

Pics: Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong

Current USA

Current is an interactive public sculpture by Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong on the new bridge path at the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge (former Tappan Zee Bridge) in New York. By day, the sculpture’s moving shadows and refractions of sunlight passing through the glass fins are ever-changing. In the evening, Current creates a shared spatial experience through the light animations that respond to movements of passers-by. Composed of 12 illuminated steel arches, Current is a dynamic sculpture that celebrates transformation. Referencing the ebb and flow of river currents, currents of light, and currents of time, the sculpture is under continual transformation. The sculpture’s largest arch is 25ft tall, with the smallest standing at 4.5ft. During the daytime, the sculpture responds to the sunlight cast upon it. The movements of the sun are seen through the shadows the sculpture draws on the adjacent ground, and through ever-changing pink and yellow refractions of sunlight that pass through the iridescent dichroic glass fins perched on the apex of each arch. In the evening, Current creates a shared spatial experience through the light animations that respond to movements of passers-by. The sculpture is self-illuminating with integrated LEDs that form lines of white light that shimmer across the array of arches. Similar to a clock’s chime, Current plays a unique, short light animation upon each new hour. Wing-Zi Wong worked with lighting designers from Arup on the illumination of Current. Arup has been providing peer review and design assistance to the New York State Thruways Authority (NYSTA) for several years as part of the design and construction oversight of the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, its support structures and approach visitor areas. Here, Arup provided technical lighting consultancy, lighting specification, assembly of control systems, construction, and system setup oversight, as well as the programming of the sculpture. Designers Xena Petkanas and Christoph Gisel worked with Wing-Zi Wong to design and develop dynamic lighting scenes that were programmed and refined during several nighttime programming sessions on site. The sculpture’s lighting system consists of 24 runs of fully encapsulated, direct mains voltage powered LED strips, connected to a DMX controlled 120V dimming rack, controlled by a cue-based lighting processor, and triggered by two motion sensors at either side of the art piece. The effects were programmed using ETC theatrical programming software, and subsequently recorded onto the lighting processor. When either motion sensor is activated, one of 16 unique lighting effects is randomly triggered. To add complexity and unpredictability, up to three effects can be layered simultaneously if multiple triggers occur. Some effects are directional, and can only be triggered by one of the two motion sensors, increasing the perception that the effect is connected to the movements of passersby. The sculpture lighting subtly pulses at a low level between effect triggers. Embodying movement, progression, connection, and change Current has become a new community hub and experience for the Westchester landing. www.cw-zw.com www.arup.com

Pics: Jae Young Park

Blue Line Park South Korea

Inaugurated in Busan late last year, Blue Line Park is a new, linear urban park that stretches across 5km of the eastern coastline, as part of the redevelopment of a disused railway overlooking the East Sea, with an entrance to the Haeundae district, one of the most modern and dynamic neighbourhoods in the city. The park stretches from the foot of the Haeundae skyscrapers, through Cheongsapo, a typical fishing village that stretches out onto the coast, before arriving at Songjeong a seaside resort in Busan. Milanese studio Migliore + Servetto Architects handled the complete art direction of the park, designing the pedestrian walkways, the access roads, installations, lighting, wayfinding and visual identity. The idea behind the architects’ approach was to transform the new, functional route into a place with a strong experiential connotation geared towards hospitality, reactivating the relationship between the inhabitants of Busan and a long stretch of the coast that has been neglected, despite being home to a host of beautiful landscapes. Alongside the route, Migliore + Servetto created a series of light installations that add moments of intrigue. The installations are conceived as changing presences that dialogue with both natural and artificial light: they act as a natural landscape, where shadow, light and atmospheric elements enter and modify perception. The installations therefore act as an iridescent presence that breathes and vibrates in synchronicity with the wind and the structure, allowing itself to be transformed both by daylight and darkness. The first installations, a series of vast, yellow stems that almost resemble a kind of artificial, out of scale nature by day, evoke the masts of sailboats in ports that are only visible by their lights at night. Elsewhere, six imposing metal arches outline Mipo Square. The arches are situated as dynamic presences in dialogue with nature, tracing variable shadow effects on the flooring with natural light, mingling with the surrounding greenery in the darkness and emphasising the design of the texture in contrast with the sky by means of artificial light. About 450 metres from Mipo Square, the route meets the Dalmaji Tunnel, a concrete tunnel that was part of the old railway. One side is backed against the hill, while the other is punctuated by arched niches open to the sea. Here, the Rainbow Tunnel installation adds chromatic dynamism to visits. The niches of the tunnel have been strengthened with suspended overhanging corten arches and painted with graded chromatic fields, combined with coloured glass panels that alternatively close them off. The coloured glass allows train passengers to view the sea through a continuous chromatic mutation, while pedestrians on the path perceive passing trains as a range of frames in different colours. After dark, the archways are illuminated, creating a vibrant wash of colours within the park. The overall vision for the Blue Line Park is to rethink the livability of metropolises, creating a space that intersects with the fabric of the city and repurposes disused land, incorporating small communities and urbanised nature to break the productive rhythm of the city in favour of a form of time and space that is restorative, built on basic actions such as breathing, walking and looking into the distance. www.miglioreservetto.com