Dark winter nights are the ideal setting for dazzling light art installations. All over the globe, cities are investing to light up the gloomy winter months and celebrate the holiday season. In the past, artists have had only a limited number of tools to work with. Today, they can choose from a wide variety of visualization technologies to create their dream setting.
Dark winter nights are the ideal setting for dazzling light art installations. All over the globe, cities are investing to light up the gloomy winter months and celebrate the holiday season. In the past, artists have had only a limited number of tools to work with. Today, they can choose from a wide variety of visualization technologies to create their dream setting.
Candles and lanterns
Light festivals have existed for centuries and are often linked to religious events. The French Festival of Lights in Lyon, for example, dates back to 1852, when locals lit their windows with thousands of candles and took to the streets holding lanterns in honor of the Virgin Mary. Light festivals are also often held around the winter solstice to welcome the return of daylight to a world that has been enveloped by darkness.
Other festivals have more recent origins and offer municipalities a chance to present their cities in a whole new light. During the darkest days of the year these installations attract new visitors and present to their audiences a side of city life they haven’t seen before. But no matter what the roots of a light festival are, the fact remains that the dark urban environment is a perfect backdrop for creative and exploratory light art projects.
City of shimmering lights
This year marked the very first Light Festival in Ghent, Belgium. In recent years, the city has invested heavily in scenic lighting for the entire city centre. Ghent’s lighting plan has won many international awards and, via the new Light Festival, the city’s officials wanted to highlight this plan and give visitors the opportunity to catch a glimpse of Ghent’s unique hidden charm.
From 27 - 29 January, twenty internationally renowned artists and light designers took visitors on a tour of the historic city centre. The program described the installations as a subtle play of light, reflected off the water’s surface, unexpected projections on buildings and poetic shadows playing in the twilight.
One of the installations at Ghent’s Light Festival was a breathtaking light projection by Spanish architect and artist Pablo Valbuena. The project, titled N 51°2’50” E3°43’42”, was part of his famous ‘Urban Installation’ series and was originally created for the Almost Cinema exhibion in Ghent in October 2010.
Pablo Valbuena is known for bringing urban buildings to life with light and shadows. He works with existing 3D spaces and crafts a new reality with moving elements and new dimensions. Two Barco FLM R20+ events projectors, supplied by XL Video, were used to set up this brilliant spectacle at the ‘Vooruit‘ building in Ghent.
A nightly fashion show
Also fashion designers use light to bring a bit of magic in the dark urban shopping streets. Last November, Ralph Lauren staged two 4D large scale building projections at its flagship stores in New York and London. The impressive show delighted the 2,500 special guests attending. It turned out to be an awesome visual display of the Ralph Lauren range, featuring 3D replicas of some of the brand’s most iconic images and accessories from the current collection.
XL Events, working for Drive Productions, provided 8 Barco FLM HD20 projectors to facilitate the visual spectacular in London. Graphics were provided by UVA using D3s to map real product footage and real models onto the building.
