VIVID Randomness 2015 (2)

Sydney May 2015 (9 photos). This is part 2 of 9 of my VIVID Sydney 2015 series.

The annual VIVID Sydney festival is now in its final week. More than 60 light art installations have popped up around the city. Approaching from the west side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the way towards the prime viewing spots for the Sydney Opera House, we enter the Walsh Bay area where several of the displays are.

HARBOUR WAVE by Andre Kecskes is a massive, curved, transparent wave installation, crested with rows of coloured lights, that ‘breaks’ across a wharf at Walsh Bay. While the form was inspired by the destructive might and power of tsunamis, the artwork’s deeper meaning relates to the psychology of dreams.

In the background is the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The interactive lighting by 32 Hundred Lighting uses 100,000 individually programmed low-energy LED lights in 1,600 LED tubes to paint the Bridge in an array of colours, movements and effects, according to the whims of the public at various control booths.

Luminous Canopy by McDermott/Baxter creates dynamic patterns, textures and forms in response to changes in the wind. As participants pass underneath, they hear tones from a natural soundscape and, looking up, see colour and changing surface patterns linked to the movements of the breeze.

Tumbleweed by Light Atelier explores the emotions involved in the design process. The artist uses the abstracted form of a tumbleweed to symbolise the emotional tumult that designers experience as they undertake their work. The structure comprises a circular base hosting a cacophony of linear extrusions which when viewed from different perspectives reveal words that were previously concealed. ‘Imagine’, ‘inspire’, dream’, ‘achieve’, ‘hope’, ‘fear’ and many other words make an appearance. The words are coloured white for positive and red for negative emotions.

Continuing under the Harbour Bridge, the sight is akin to an amusement park. We encounter more installations.

Kaleidoscope by Stephanie Shehata and Erin Slaviero, creates portals of infinite space by manipulating perspective with light and mirrors, merging the ideas of an infinity mirror and an infinity room. To create the dynamic visual of a ‘kaleidoscope’ through the infinity space, the artist incorporated four elements: the viewer’s submersion into the blackness of a shipping container; mirrored, slanted walls forming a triangular room; inter-reflections between the room and the viewer; and backlit, dichroic 3D screens in the floor and ceiling.

Beat by Arup Singapore Pte Ltd comprises a series of large translucent shapes that emit an intense pulsating light display when touched, timed to the rhythm of the human heart. The objects increase the intensity of their pulse to keep pace with the individual’s own cardiac rhythm. Sensors housed inside the objects detect a human pulse through the fingertip and trigger the LED to replicate the participant’s heartbeat with a pulsating light.

Arclight by Studio workshop and Matsys is an architecturally designed, environmentally inspired structure that echoes the native mangroves of Australia’s waterways. Through its complex geometry and architectural form, Arclight creates a dense thicket of clustered synthetic branch structures which incorporate interactive lighting technology programmed to interpret environmental conditions. Arclight creates an immersive atmosphere of sculptural, bio-inspired forms that is intensified with LED lights programmed to interpret ambient and environmental phenomena (such as temperature, wind speed, and humidity), which are sensed and expressed via patterns and colours emitted by LED cells.

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Our journey towards the Sydney Opera House continues in the next post.

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This is part 2 of my 9 part VIVID Sydney 2015 series.

All my photography from this and previous years of VIVID Sydney can be found here.