The culture night is a special event where the city opens its doors and invites inside. One of the many initiatives undertaken by the Copenhagen Cultural Association is to enlighten the city with beautiful light installations. For this event, No Parking was hired to create 4 light installations at central hubs in the city. We designed and constructed light and video installations at Nørreport Station, King’s Garden, Queen Louise Bridge and on the facade of Frederiksberg Town Hall. The installations were developed in collaboration with sound artist ULYD, visual artist Maj-Britt Boa and animation instructor Marco Sandeman. The setups were made in collaboration with the Tuxen AV-Center.
At Nørreport and Frederiksberg Town Hall, No Parking worked with major video projections that fitted into the sites architecture. On the other 2 installations we created unique light installations. In addition, we designed and produced 100 luminous LED triangles that were distributed between the locations. Lighting was programmed to tone up and down with different colors, supplemented by sound from multiple speakers – created by the audio artist ULYD. Together, a poetic expression was created, entitled “You are a human being.”
No Parking created an living image language on the video projections. Through the windows of Frederiksberg Town Hall, there were animations of living silhouettes that rushed busy around. The silhouettes for example pulled virtual blinds in front of the windows, which then transformed into colorful universes. Suddenly the window facade became a large deep sea aquarium with luminous underwater creatures. Another time, wild plants and forest animals grew up, or a sunset sky was lit with a dance of flocking birds. The changing scenarios were accompanied by discreet sound effects and ambient lighting on the balcony.
At Nørreport the concrete building was illuminated from below, by a large video projection that travelled into an abstract visual universe. The audience experienced being at the bottom of the ocean’s depths, viewing the city’s vibrant light from above, or a heavy rain creating a myriad of blue digital waves. The video sequences were accompanied by an audio composition with sound effects, music and poetry.
The light installations have required major planning and an intense production fase. Therefore, the most complex of installations were preliminary built up as computer graphics, to explore technical and aesthetic solutions. LED triangles were fabricated, and the projections were tested in smaller scale at the locations. Last but not least, the safety and practice was reviewed with the City of Copenhagen and the police.
