GLOW presents three TU/e light art projects

GLOW 2013 will have three TU/e light art projects on display. Built Environment lecturer Ralph Brodrück’s ‘light beacon’made it into the event, as did two installations of the Intelligent Lighting Institute.

The theme for GLOW 2013 is ‘Urban Playground’. The event kicks off on November 9. TU/e will also make in appearance in said playground – two installations of the Intelligent Lighting Institute (ILI) will be on display, for example, created by fifteen Industrial Design (ID) graduate students. Both installations are part of GLOW NEXT, the more experimental ‘light lab’ of GLOW that’s organized at Strijp-S in the same week. 

The most playful of the two projects is ‘Wave’, an interactive installation that visualizes sound waves with the help of light. To that end, eight projectors and four sound cameras (from TU/e spinoff Sorama) are set up, which record sound in three dimensions. Vistors are challenged to enter the project area and talk, whistle, or stomp their feet. Depending on the location, frequency and volume of their sound, either thick, thin, fast, slow, big or small circles will appear around the person producing the sound. 

‘Wave’ will be installed in the Klokgebouw, in an area near the parking area. At a five-minute walking distance, on the Torenallee, visitors can enjoy ‘Iris’, the other TU/e project. Six graduate students will lay out a 240-meter vinyl walkway covered in various prints and colors. By lighting the walkway with different colors the patterns change continuously, creating a dynamic walkway.    

Ralph Brodrück of Built Environment wants to send a cable attached to some twenty helium balloons -each about a meter in diameter- into the air during GLOW. The balloons carry a total of eight ‘flash devices’ consisting of four sets of twenty-eight LEDs each. According to the inventor visitors should prepare for “a sort of permanent fireworks” of sparkling lights that seem to hover in the air. 

Brodrück’s installation will be fitted on top of the DELA building on the Vestdijk. Although it’s not included in the walking tour, the artwork should be visible from all over the city center; the topmost lights will be suspended at a hundred meters above ground level.

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