[HOTEL STAY GIVEAWAY] An Introduction to All 25 Light Installations at the i Light Marina Bay Festival

There are many reasons to check out i Light Marina Bay, Asia’s leading sustainable light art festival. Into it’s fourth edition this year, the festival features 25 innovative and sustainable light art installations created by creative talents from around the world, lighting up Singapore’s iconic Marina Bay.

An extra reason to visit this year’s i Light Marina Bay if you are a reader of Alvinology is that you get to stand a chance to win a night stay in a Premier Bay Room with 2 complimentary breakfasts at Marina Mandarin! Read till the end for details on how to win this. 

Check out our previous post to find out more on the many fringe activities and other festival programmes. 

This year’s festival theme set by the festival’s multinational curatorial team “In Praise of Shadows”, inspired by one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, Junichiro Tanizaki ‘s seminal essay of the same title.

Challenging the obsession that brighter is better and seeking to reframe perceptions of light and sustainability, the team hopes to inspire artists and festival-goers to re-imagine and reconsider sustainability issues in a new light and come together to create and sustain a harmonious relationship with our environment.

Before heading down to the festival venue, here are the background information for all the 25 light installations which you will get to interact with in person. Here goes:

1. CYCLE HOUSE
Hafiz Osman | Singapore

Location: Lower boardwalk, near Bayfront South jetty

Cycle House is a mobile workstation combining temporary shelter and cycling. The mobility of this shelter represents a sense of nomadic livelihood of a wanderer, being adaptive to new environments and with a desire to search for new adventures. Two cycle houses have been created: the stationary house invites visitors to cycle to light up the piece while expressing their ideas of exploration by drawing on the canvas wall; the mobile house brings a more energetic, disco-themed performance to the bay.

2. LIGHT WALK
Jen Lewin | USA

Location: Mist Walk

Light Walk is an evolution of the immersive laser harp installations Jen Lewin has worked on for twenty years. The thirty-six custom made modules presented here borrows the form of the existing Mist Walk at the Marina Bay waterfront promenade. Together, they create an entirely new, immersive and playful experience. Just like plucking the string of a harp, passing through the beams triggers its circuitry and sensors to emit melodic notes and project glowing interactive lights.

3. CLOCKWORK STORIES
School of Design, Nanyang Polytechnic | Singapore

Location: Lower boardwalk, near Mist Walk

Clockwork Stories consists of environmental receptors which breathe out bubbles when roused. The surrounding light sources and other elements such as wind, water currents and human interaction activate these receptors. One of the receptors is The Swing and the Bubbling Turbines, which invites visitors to swing on it, working the turbines to breathe out bubbles which capture and transform light into a spectrum of colours as they fly and disappear into the air.

4. GROOVE LIGHT
Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore | Singapore

Location: Mist Walk

Groove Light generates geometric shadow patterns when a point light source is shone through five 3D printed lanterns, creating a carpet of light giving physical dimension – in the complex forms of the lanterns – to virtual projections. The suspended lanterns are positioned with precision to create a continuous lightscape which visitors can modify by moving the lanterns.

Supported by BigRep GmbH and Philips Lighting.

5. THE UNVEILED BEAUTY
School of Interactive & Digital Media, Nanyang Polytechnic | Singapore

Location: Marina Bay waterfront promenade, in front of Marina Bay City Gallery

The Unveiled Beauty aims to change preconceived notions about shadows being boring and showcase how shadows can be manipulated with technology to make them interesting and fun. The installation adds a different dimension to the audiences’ shadows through a mix of suspended acrylic and manipulated light.

Supported by Possible.

6. EMOGRAPH
“I DID IT” Society | Latvia

Location: Marina Bay City Gallery

The mysterious Emograph measures the visitor’s pulse and transforms it into a bright mosaic of colours and sound when a finger is inserted into the installation. The pulse triggers a motorised kaleidoscope into action, projecting the image onto a facade, at the same time converting the pulse into a complementary soundtrack.

Presented by Tudor.
Supported by Light festival “Staro Riga”, Panasonic and Riga City Council.

7. BOLT
Jun Ong | Malaysia

Location: Marina Bay waterfront promenade

Inspired by the form and behaviour of lightning, the installation comprises an intricate network of LED tubes resting on steel legs that flare up when touched. Bolt not only mimics the ethereal nature of lightning, but also allows people to experience direct visceral connections, creating an emotional ‘spark’ that seems to be diminishing in today’s virtually-connected world.

8. TORRENT
Brandon Tay | Singapore

Location: Marina Bay waterfront promenade

TORRENT is a site-specific interactive installation that aims to transport users into a dreamlike landscape. As users walk past the screen, they find their movements reflected on a screen against an icy landscape, as if a virtual shadow with a swarm of trailing particles, with their motions mirrored but their forms vague.

9. MARINE CONSTELLATIONS
Laughing Stars & Lumen Artistry | Japan & Singapore

Location: Around Marina Bay

Marine Constellations seek to portray the relationship between light, our urban fabric, and the observer.

Having looked up to the stars for answers to our existential questions since ages past, this work reframes that act of looking up in the context of the city. Beams of lasers link the familiar skyline of Marina Bay as if creating this new Constellation among the cityscape for visitors to trace. Mechanisms afloat in the bay conjure the appearance of a fireball falling, splashing and extinguishing itself in the bay – as if glimpses of shooting stars in the water, highlighting the fleeting, often unseen, moments in our lives.

The laser beams can be seen from many different spots around the Marina Bay, with the best view from The Promontory @ Marina Bay. And don’t forget to look out for the 4 shooting stars in the Bay when you stroll along the waterfront promenade.

Visitors are also invited to make a wish to those close to their hearts at www.wishuponeveryshootingstar.net, and every time a camera, set up by the artists in Chiang Mai, captures a shooting star, your message will be sent along with an image of that star. Find out more here.

Supported by Bizlink, Eureka Technologies, Lutron, LuxLight, Million Lighting, National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, PTP, Science Centre Singapore and Singapore Tourism Board.

10. SHADOW BATH
Loop.pH | United Kingdom

Location: The Promontory @ Marina Bay

Shadow Bath is a luminous inflated bathhouse with coloured light and air casting spectacular patterns inside and out, bathing visitors in dynamic patterned shades. The pneumatic form is a mathematical toroidal space, signifying the geometry of the universe.

During certain periods, visitors will be able to enter the bathhouse for a unique light show. During normal times, visitors can observe the form from the outside as it casts its patterned moiré shadows far and wide like a huge lantern.

11. LAMPSHADE
Snøhetta | Norway

Location: The Promontory @ Marina Bay

Lampshade is made of simple bamboo structures covered in photovoltaic cells to prevent sunlight from entering its interior in the day, while lighting up intensively at night with solar energy enough to power a thousand lamps. The installation challenges the perception of artificial light as an element that is dependent on its energy source, and invites visitors to discover links in harnessing sunlight and the eventual electric light.

Made to be both socially and environmentally friendly, the lamps used in this installation will be donated to off-grid communities after its display while the bamboo structure and its light fixtures will be recycled as construction scaffolding.

Supported by Bambooroo, Bright Products AS, Partnership for Change and Singapore University of Technology and Design.

12. ANGELS OF FREEDOM
OGE Group, Gaston Zahr & Merav Eitan | Germany & Israel

Location: The Promontory @ Marina Bay

Five sets of giant, colourful wings invite visitors to come close and interact with the symbolic angels. This installation seeks to remind visitors of their true selves and to always remain connected to loved ones and those who matter.

13. MOON HAZE
Feng Jiacheng & Huang Yuanbei | China

Location: Marina Bay waterfront promenade

Beyond its delightful representation of the full moon, Moon Haze also functions as a monitoring system for air pollutants, picking up and responding to the ambient air quality – the better the air quality, the brighter the installation. In the same space occupied by the moon, people and the environment, the collective effects of these individual parts on one another are integrated and expressed, showing their close relationship and inseparability.

Co-created by Guangzhou Light Festival

14. C’SCAPE
Illuminate LD | Singapore

Location: Marina Bay waterfront promenade

C’scape is an installation where form folds into a space reminiscent of the city. The central feature is a time-lapse light display evoking the synergy between the sun and the moon. On the perimeter, geometric forms represent the city skyline. As the sun sets, these screens animate the night scene at a city scale. Shadows of visitors cast onto the screen bring another dimension to the projected city, creating a tension in the interplay between shadow and scale.

Co-created by Osram
Supported by Krislite Pte Ltd.

15. LIGHT ORIGAMI
KAZ Shirane | Japan

Location: OUE Bayfront

Light Origami invites viewers to explore reality by entering a giant 3D kaleidoscope. The domed structure is bathed in light and constructed using over 320 origami shapes made from mirrored panels to show what light can look like when folded like paper. Changing spectrums of light are projected within the space, mirrored in the facets of the space while creating an entrancing kaleidoscope of light.

Light Origami was first commissioned by Destination New South Wales for Vivid Sydney 2015.

In Collaboration with Reuben Young (Producer).
Presented by OUE
Supported by Arup and Lumenpulse.

16. LIGHTSCAPE PAVILION
MisoSoupDesign | Taiwan

Location: Clifford Square

Inspired by traditional Chinese lanterns, Lightscape Pavilion is made of simple, natural materials. Its bamboo lattice is designed to resemble a traditional lantern and its responsive glow serves to unite people under its canopy. The transparency and subtlety of the pavilion places emphasis and focus on the aesthetical beauty of its surroundings and inhabitants instead of its own self. As visitors move closer to its columns, its glow intensifies, as if to symbolically draw strength from the proximity of a human spirit.

Presented by The Fullerton Heritage.

17. TERRA.GLIMMER
School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Singapore Polytechnic | Singapore

Location: Near Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay

terra.glimmer seeks to explore how phosphorescent paint – more commonly known as “glow-in-the-dark” paint – can be applied practically, aesthetically and sustainably as an alternative to light. Inspired by Japanese Zen gardens, the installation consists of a bed of pebbles painted with phosphorescent paint, and encourages visitors to reflect on the reliance on fossil fuels to illuminate cities, the overabundance of urban bright lights, and the urgent need to continue seeking alternative lighting sources.

18. DANDELION
Supermachine Studio (Pitupong Chaowakul) | Thailand

Location: The Float @ Marina Bay, under the Seating Gallery

Dandelion is a low-fi interactive sphere consisting of 320 3D-printed flip panels and a singular light source installed at its core, projecting shadows on surrounding surfaces. Visitors are invited to open and close the panels to create different configurations of light and shadows.

19. FISSURE
Ong Kian Peng | Singapore

Location: The Float @ Marina Bay, under the Seating Gallery

Fissure is a light sculpture that takes the form of a polyhedron that has been cut into half. Light permeates through its centre, taking form in a fluid scanning motion that changes over time. When visitors place their palms on the two pedestals, the sculpture visualises their heartbeats which start off as individual pulses but synchronising over time and transforming into a unique visual light sequence. Influenced by the conflicted state of the world today, Fissure speaks of the possibility of coming together to make a difference.

20. THE CLOUD
Kenny Hong | Singapore

Location: The Float @ Marina Bay, under the Seating Gallery

This lighting installation resembles a cloud, symbolising the guidance and protection of the community.

The flexibility of the material allows it to be cut and curled, and with the thinness of the electroluminescent lighting, makes it possible to create a visual interaction of curvilinear planes. It gives the effect of swirling movement of a supernatural cloud. In this technology created by A*STAR, electrically functional inks are deposited on materials such as plastic or metal foil, giving rise to sleek dimensions and an aesthetically pleasing, uniform diffused light.

21. UNSEEN: TOUCH FIELD
Alecia Neo | Singapore

Location: The Float @ Marina Bay, under the Seating Gallery

Unfolding like an endless topographical illustration within a floating tunnel, Unseen: Touch Field depicts the cityscapes of Singapore and Taipei as a drawing that is meant to be ‘seen’ in the dark, using the touch of the hand instead of the gaze of the eye. The work invites visitors to experience the reality of visually-impaired individuals.

The installation is based on an ongoing series of work Neo first undertook with blind and sight-impaired participants from the two cities, where the artist collaborated with the participants to create photographic self-portraits and images of their surroundings. These were subsequently rendered into the ‘braille drawings’ of Touch Field. Bereft of sight, the body adjusts to heighten other senses like touch – it is this human ability to adjust in the face of challenging conditions that is a characteristic shared by many, showing that people are more alike than we often believe to be true.

22. ODE TO THE WIND
School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University | Singapore

Location: Location: The Float @ Marina Bay

Ode to the Wind visualises the power of wind using LED lights. Using digital algorithms, the installation uses the wind data to create a dynamic light installation, with the colours and brightness of the LED lights changing with the strength of the wind. Drawing from numerous wind datasets from locations around the globe, visitors will be able to observe visualisations of the wind across continents gathered and presented in one space.

Design and development supported by Corey Manders.
In collaboration with Faith Teh from the NTU Museum.

23. SONICTOWER
Zulkifle Mahmod | Singapore

Location: The Float @ Marina Bay

SONICtower comprises four zones with a total of 320 solenoids and LED lights to create a rhythmic sound and light scape within the confines of the scaffolds. It invites visitors to listen and discover unique compositions as they explore different pockets of the artwork.

The installation is an expansion of “Alice, Did You Hear That?”, a sound installation commissioned for Singapore: Inside Out in 2015. It is inspired by ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Spaces speak, are you listening?’, a book by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter, which explores soundscapes in the urban environment.

Co-created by Martin

24. GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM
Rohan Abdullah & Stanley Yeo | Singapore

Location: The Float @ Marina Bay

A fun piece that hopes to bring out the child in us and our fascination of space, the rocket is a glimmering, colour-changing piece by day, and a multi-coloured lantern casting light onto its surroundings by night. The installation loosely interprets this interplay of darkness and light in space, and seeks to allay fears of what human beings do not totally understand.

Co-created by Lighting Images
Supported by arbucomp, Luxlight, and Shenzhen King Façade Decoration Engineering.

25. WHAT A LOVING & BEAUTIFUL WORLD – ARTSCIENCE MUSEUM
teamLab | Japan

Location: ArtScience Museum

First carved in tortoiseshell, ox and deer bone, and bronzeware, Chinese characters were said to each contain their own world. Projected on the facade of the ArtScience Museum, viewers can participate by ‘swiping’ the Chinese characters onto the facade of the building using a web application. The result is a colourful, multi-sensory experience that continuously evolves as images are released from these Chinese characters, while influencing and changing each other within its own immersive, computer-generated world.

Interact with this artwork at ilight.team-lab.com.
Presented by Marina Bay Sands and Panasonic.

Win a night stay in a Premier Bay Room with 2 complimentary breakfasts at Marina Mandarin! 

An award-winning 5 star hotel in the heart of the Marina Bay City, Marina Mandarin Singapore offers top value with breathtaking views of the Marina Bay and financial district, as well as convenient access to the Marina Square Shopping Mall.

To win, complete the following:

1. Vist i Light Marina Bay and take some awesome photos or videos
2. Share your photos or videos on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with the following hashtags – #alvinxilight, #ilightmarinabay, #marinamandarinspore, #mmsmoments
3. Winner will be announced at the end of the i Light Marina Bay festival

Have fun with the submissions and enjoy yourself at the festival! Contest closes on 27 March 2016. 🙂

Terms and Conditions: Prize is for 1 one-night stay and valid on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only. The voucher must be used before 4 June 2016.