Vivid Sydney, the largest festival of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, came to an end recently. With its 60 light sculptures, which span large-scale projections to grassroots LED installations, the festival represents an important contributor to the media architecture movement. For the first time this year, the Media Architecture Institute was one of the supporters for a centerpiece installation that used a range of lighting and interactive sensor technologies to create a unique visitor experience. The installation with the title Chromapollination is an interactive light sculpture that reclaims a neglected urban space in Sydney’s Central Business District transforming it into a playful and inviting city organism. Giant glowing dandelions are sprawling from cracks in the concrete to project colour and motion onto and around passersby and festival participants. The dandelions react to their environment – passersby generate a digital wind that gently caresses the tops of the flowers. As force builds, the ‘seeds’ break off and transverse across a light ceiling.
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