Light Tree Intervention @ Citizen Lights 2020

Following the good reception of Neighbourhood Light Choreography during Citizen Lights 2018, the organisation of the Schaerbeek light festival contacted us to explore how to extend the collaboration. Citizen Lights coupled us with Amadeo asbl, an organisation in Schaarbeek which offers workshops with children in which they often make use of large mechanical musical instruments. For this year’s edition of the festival, the Amadeo team wanted to build something around the idea of an ‘interactive tree’. 

The resulting intervention consisted of two parts, namely a balloon parade and a “Light Tree” intervention. The balloon parade was a key highlight of the festival, in which participants of all ages and types of civic organisations walked from square to square throughout Schaerbeek. For our part in this parade, Amadeo worked together with two primary schools to develop an animated light choreography with the light-emitting balloons we developed for them. As for the “Light Tree”, as Amadeo had previously built a wooden tree they wished to reuse, they imagined multiple light-emitting balls attached to the tree as well as integrated in the environment around it. The intervention concept was that these balls would be activated by pressing on a large interactive cushion at the base of the tree (designed and programmed by engineers from the Squeezy project at GroupT/KU Leuven). With enough people pressing the cushion from different angles, their collective interaction would give rise to an intimate and intricate light spectacle at the top of the tree!

Team
Concept and coordination: Urban Species, asbl Amadeo vzw
Participating organization: vzw Amadeo asbl
Technical development (cushion): Bert Vandenberghe/Squeezy project (GroupT/KU Leuven)

Place of intervention
Schaerbeek, Brussels (BE) 

Intervention dates/period
7-8/02/2020