Imagination Sets Sail in LED Installation “Voyage”

Growing up in Los Angeles, it was always a bit of an “event” when the typically sunny sky chose to fill up with clouds and pour down rain. On those days, my sister and I would build little boats out of wine corks, toothpicks and paper, which we set sail down the gushing streams that formed in the gutters on our street. Childhood memories like this are exactly what “Voyage,” a spectacular, interactive RGB LED light installation in London’s Canary Wharf, intends to evoke.

DMX LED

Created by London-based artist duo Aether & Hemera and commissioned by the Canary Wharf to launch its 2013 “Sculpture at Work” program, the DMX LED installation will be on display until February 15, 2013. Participants can interact with the piece by logging onto the Voyage WI-FI network on their mobile phones. From there, they can influence the colors and patterns displayed by the boats. Each of the 300 boats, which the artists designed using custom software and built using recyclable and sturdy polypropylene contains an RGB LED, a micro controller and a data receiver, which work together to collect and process viewers requests over the WI-FI network. The results are a beautiful display not only of what innovative technology can contribute to artistic expression, but also a unique, whimsical form of illuminated, aquatic art that allows viewers to, as the artists put it, “make a transition from reality to imagination, reliving childhood memories and embracing our freedom; blurring the lines between the real and hyper-real.”

DMX LED

Learn more about the creation of Voyage in this blog from Aether & Hemera.