The
Philadelphia Live Arts & Philly Fringe Festival and DesignPhiladelphia, are going to light up the Ben Franklin Parkway like never before come September. The best part is that visitors to the Parkway will be the ones controlling the light show through the use of a smartphone app. This will be the world premier of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s "Open Air" art installation, which will provide a web of light over the path many people use to access Center City.
Open Air will consist of 3-D light that is powered by the voices and GPS locations of Parkway visitors through the use of a free smartphone app, says Susan Myers, the Open Air project manager with the
Fairmount Park Art Association. Myers makes sure to mention that everyone will be given a chance to participate, as the Art Association will have a station by the Philadelphia Museum of Art parking lot where people can borrow smartphones to use.
The display will span from 21st to 24th Sts. along the Parkway, with lights mounted to
Parktowne Place, the Best Western hotel, and scaffolding on Von Colln Field, according to Myers. In all, there will be 24 robotic searchlights, which will be visible from as far as 15 miles away. While Myers admits a similar presentation was done in Tokyo, this will be considered a world premiere. If Lozano-Hemmer is successful here, he will likely follow suit with similar interactive light shows in cities across the world.
The Fairmount Park Art Association received the largest amount awarded through the 2011 Knight Arts Challenge from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, $250,000, and a $45,000 grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts to bring Open Air to Philly.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is a Mexican-Canadian artist who works with architecture and high-tech theater, and whose works have been displayed around the world and in prestigious museums, like the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York.
Myers is truly excited to bring "Open Air"to the Parkway. "We feel public art is one of the city’s most overlooked assets," she says. The project manager has reached out to various stakeholders, such as the
Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA). She makes it clear that the searchlights won’t shine in anyone’s window, which is a point that seems to satisfy members of LSNA.
Source: Susan Myers, Fairmount Park Art Association
Writer: Andy Sharpe
Photo courtesy of the Fairmount Park Art Association