A semi-permanent public realm installation project in collaboration with Creatmosphere, commissioned by Suffolk County Council and funded by the Arts Council England. The site, in Ipswich, Suffolk, is a stretch of derelict dockland undergoing a huge amount of redevelopment. As this construction work is due to continue for a number of years, our brief was to create an interactive, dynamic installation to help to unify the stretch of waterfront as the work progresses. The site itself is a mixture of new and old buildings and is architecturally rather disparate, so our concept was to use light to unify the area at night. After a hefty clean-up of several derelict buildings, LED and electroluminescent lighting was used to illuminate windows around the site, as well as key pedestrian walkways that were previously under-lit and quite intimidating. Under the canopy of a dance centre that lies at the centre of the site, a projection system was constructed incorporating Infrared image tracking and sound. Several simple animations were created, designed to react to passers by (colour painting, object swarms, generative sound, etc). Playing with these animations also affects the lights in the surrounding buildings, causing pulses of light to ripple out across the entire site. In short, one person has the ability to affect the lighting across a quarter of a mile of architecture.
Light Waves
