News Hour has the story on light artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer who installed an interactive artwork at the Vancouver Olympics called “Vectorial Elevation.” Anyone with access to the Internet can program searchlights over Vancouver.
The twenty, 10 KW robotic lights are visible for 10-miles. Participants can create a light display on the project’s Web site, VectorialVancouver.net, where they will also find a virtual model of Vancouver. Users can set the angles and power of the searchlights. The information is then queued in a server that operates the robotic lights. Here’s how it works.
The searchlights project a new image every 12 seconds. For those who can’t see it in person, the entire show is captured live via four Web cameras.
By now, says Lozano-Hemmer, most people in Vancouver, both residents and visitors, know that other people are programming the lights. He says an important part of the audience’s relationship to the piece is that programmers are allowed to dedicate their light “sculpture” to anyone or anything.
“People are expressing themselves freely on this platform, and I really like that,” he says. “This website is a public space, like a public plaza, so no one should be telling you what to say or [what] not to say.”
After just over a week of operation, the heavy beams of blue-white light have been programmed more than 11,000 times by people from 134 countries, from as far away as Japan and Germany and as close as right across the street.
The Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad is holding hundreds of events thoughout the Winter Olympics. By uploading photos and text to Canada CODE, you’ll be part of Canada’s largest-ever digital scrapbook and collaborative art project. The results of your contributions, remixed, will be shown across Vancouver on large public screens during the 2010 Winter Games.
