I received an email from Abacus, the designers and manufacturers of the new Lords Floodlights in London saying that the lights were used in anger for the first time this week. Pretty cool eh?
Archive for May, 2009
Lords Floodlights update
Friday, May 29th, 2009Meanwhile, somewhere in Austria…
Thursday, May 28th, 2009…some people have been having a lot of fun with some LEDs, tunes and computers. Lights on is an audio visual performance created for the Ars Electronica museum in Linz, Austria, which has a facade that contains 1085 LED controllable windows. The windows’ colors are changed in realtime with music that’s broadcasted on speakers surrounding the building.
Vivid Sydney
Thursday, May 28th, 2009It’s all happening in Sydney at the moment. The Vivid Sydney festival, an initiative of the City of Sydney is being called (by the organisers) “biggest international music and light festival in the Southern Hemisphere”.
The festival comprises some pretty cool events: Sydney Opera House presents Luminous - a festival of music, debate, light and performance. Curated by Brian Eno featuring a plethora of music acts alongside public talks and spectacular light and art installations from May 28 to June 14.
Watch Curator Brian Eno talk about Luminous.
Running concurrently with Luminous, also part of the festival, is Smart Light Sydney which is a series of dynamic light art sculptures located at the harbour precinct from Sydney Observatory, around the Rocks and Circular Quay to Sydney Opera House.
In the first of a series of unbuilt works which we think would have been amazing, check out Electrolight’s entry for Smart Light. With the theme being “memories from the past” we were interested in the pre-colonial history of the harbour and conceived of a traditional canoe made from light, some 6m in length, sitting on the harbour at Campbell’s Cove. Check out our entry below…
LightCycle Update
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009We have now received over 70 registrations for LightCycle and the first batch of entry kits has been sent out to those who paid the entry fee before the end of last week. We will be sending the next batch at the start of next week and again weekly thereafter… 
Top Acts 2009
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009Last night I attended Top Acts 2009 at a full Hamer Hall.
I was invited because Electrolight’s Rachel Burke and John Ford designed the lighting for the show in collaboration with artistic director Naomi Edwards. Top Acts is a concert presenting drama, theatre, group and solo music, and dance performances by VCE Performing arts students as part of the annual VCE Season of Excellence.
The sheer talent on display was breathtaking, given the performers would not be old enough to buy a drink in the bar after the show. Highlights for me were Josh Rogan with an amazing trumpet solo, Darcy Brown with a monologue from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and the breathtaking music group performance of Prayer for the Children by Jemal Blakkarly, Andrew Bird, Luke Stevenson and Lindsay Ondracek.
And needless to say, the lighting looked absolutely stunning!
UVA in Melbourne
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009We are very excited at the prospect of United Visual Artists coming to Melbourne next month for Fed Square’s Light in Winter festival.
Headlining the festival is UVA’s ‘Volume’ installation with a soundtrack arranged by Neil Davidge and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack. UVA are a British-based collective whose current practice spans permanent architectural installation, live performance and responsive installation.
The installation has recently transformed the London V&A museum’s John Madejski Garden. Volume is a sculpture of light and sound, an array of light columns that responds spectacularly to human movement, creating a series of audio-visual experiences. Step inside and see your actions at play with the energy fields throughout the space, triggering a brilliant display of light and sound.
UVA’s website shows a glimpse of what’s in store.
Light in Winter, now in its second year, is a light-based festival that brings together artists, designers and communities to explore their ideas of light, enlightenment and hope. Some of Melbourne’s multicultural communities will produce work as part of a ‘gift of light’ installation.
We’re hiring
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009Due to unprecedented demand for our services we need to strengthen our team. Specifically we are looking for a designer from an electrical services engineering background with a penchant for the technical side of lighting including road lighting, daylighting and a thorough knowledge of lighting and building codes. The successful candidate will also be able to design and document the electrical engineering associated with our lighting designs.
To apply please send your CV and a cover letter explaining why you would like to join Electrolight and what you have to offer to info@electrolight.com.au
New Floodlights at Lords
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009Watching the cricket on TV the other day I saw the new floodlighting scheme at Lords cricket ground in London. Is this the sexiest piece of sports lighting in the world?
4 masts, each holding 100 x 2kW metal halide floodlights produce 2200 lux at the wicket and 1500 lux at the boundary. The arrangement of fixtures echo the form of the Media Centre by architect Future Systems.
Planning permission was a significant hurdle for the project. The residents of the exclusive suburb of St John’s Wood where the ground is located are known to have strong views regarding new buildings in their back yard. The visual impact of the scheme has been lessened by making the heads retractable on a telescopic mast which sit near the height of the grandstand (around 30m) when not in use and raise up to 50m during operation.
See a video of the Lords floodlighting installation
LightCycle First Registration Received
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
Congratulations to Hayden Martis for being the first person to register for LightCycle. Your entry kit is on its way and we look forward to seeing what you do with it.
Welcome to our blog
Monday, May 11th, 2009Welcome to the first post of our shiny new blog. We intend to use this space to tell the world about what we are up to as a practice, to share our thoughts and the things that we find interesting in our wonderful world of lighting. We welcome feedback and for people to share with us things that excites them. If it’s associated with lighting and interesting then we want to know about it.