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people seem to be really attracted to
light in general i mean it's the basic
impulse it's not verbal it's like
looking at a campfire so there's
something very hypnotic about that that
people are really attracted to so i
think i'm i'm planning on adding this
digital element to it and finding my own
rules and structures and ways of taking
people on a journey
my main interest is in creating light
sculpture
my work with with light sculpture it's
uh it's been very much about creating a
social space
wondering what it is
trying to decode
and then also having these conversations
about those pieces
so creating communal space
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the project i'm doing in san francisco
is called the bay lights it's a light
sculpture that is mounted on the bay
bridge in san francisco between san
francisco and treasure island
i was asked by ben davis who runs a
creative agency out of the bay area to
consider the bridge as a canvas
my conversations with leo viral were
around things like what does a bridge
mean metaphorically it's mobility it's
human connection it's this path across a
harsh divide so those conversations
manifested in leo taking the step of
producing the artist rendering that
really was just one minute that changed
the entire future of this process people
went from saying
what is it again to
how can i help make that happen
a lot of the inspiration for the piece
comes from the site i'm always working
with kinetic motion that i find in
places and trying to integrate that into
what i'm doing because then it feels
more appropriate and almost becomes like
a mirror of the activity around it so in
the case of the bridge
obviously you have cars moving back and
forth you have traffic there's
incredible interplay of water air light
the movement of birds any information
like that
serves to help guide what i'm doing in
my sequencing
in my process when i'm creating a piece
i'm interested in this idea of emergent
behavior and that means that i don't
know in advance what the sequence is
going to do but i set up certain initial
conditions and then let things happen
within those constraints
so i'm looking for that surprising
moment that i didn't anticipate or
couldn't have created myself in a very
direct way when people realize i'm
controlling this piece live they gather
around the computer they start talking
people never had any sort of interaction
and we've suddenly created this
community that has this focal point
which is the bay lights
we're using video files as the container
for the light data so each pixel in the
movie corresponds to an actual led on
the bridge it's 1.8 miles long
but it's about 240 feet tall which is
where the suspender cables is so that
aspect ratio is very different than any
other kind of aspect ratio you encounter
in video or hd as part of the process
for figuring out what the sequencing and
what the pattern should be on the bay
lights i've created a scale model of the
piece
using printed circuit boards and white
leds
so i've had this six foot wide one foot
tall piece that i've been working with
and trying to do some sequencing on and
this is something that i'd worked with
parallel development some of my
fabricators and extremely talented
engineers to be able to develop this so
it's really you know highly customized
you know couture electronics
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the bay lights consists of 25 000 white
led lights approximately their power
supplies all over the bridge those power
supplies also receive data so each one
has an ip address
the equipment is stored in the central
anchorage of the bridge which is in the
very middle and it holds the bridge up
and the control computers are in there
so we've been having to use a remote
connection to access those computers
remotely so i've been using a remote
desktop to log into those machines and
be able to control them remotely one of
the important things about the bay
lights is that we're using led low
voltage lights very energy efficient and
i think the total power draw for the the
bay lights is 30 a night
and the piece is enormous so that means
i've had to go to a lot of different
places and look at the piece and and
learn you know see well how does it look
close up how does it look far away
certain things read
um and certain things don't so there's
been a lot of factoring in of trying to
make it work from as many angles as
possible
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i can't believe the moment is actually
here but here we are 1.8 miles long 25
000 lights so here we go
this is a unique opportunity to really
activate a huge
to create a monumental piece of public
art
we've estimated that 50 million people
will see the bay lights over the two
years that it's installed directly so it
has a huge impact well i think art has a
huge role to play and and for me the
most successful art is is changes the
way you see things like you can't see
things the same way after you've seen a
great piece of art
so that's what my goal is as an artist
is to really change the way people see
things
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i think this work is just different than
a lot of other types of work that people
are used to of art and you you may go
home with no specific recollection of
the work at all other than the time that
you were there it's it's the
communication in the community that
you're with the story that you told or
heard the song that may have been sung
or the action that was going on around
you it's a mood piece it's a community
piece rather than just a thing that
lives in isolation
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