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Feature: Interactive "i Light Marina Bay" festival illuminates night sky of Singapore with message of sustainability

Xinhua, March 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

Evening time in Singapore is cosy and wonderful at this time of year, but more so when the "i Light Marina Bay", one of Asia's leading sustainable light art festivals, illuminates the sky with its exquisite light art installations, which shine along Singapore's signature Marina Bay waterfront.

This stunning biennial festival, beginning Friday, which was first held in 2010 by Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority to inject vibrancy and reinforce Marina Bay's position as a sustainable precinct, features artists from around the world with their beautiful artworks lighting up the night sky of the lion city.

Visitors will behold a very different face of the Marina Bay region, as many of the iconic buildings will become huge projection screens for visitors to interact with.

For example, the facade of Singapore's ArtScience Museum will turn into a giant floral display, with visitors being able to interact with the installation by choosing a Chinese character on their smart-phone and "swiping" the character onto the facade of the building, where they will be transformed into illuminated images. The images, in turn, also interact with one another, creating vivid animations inspired by nature.

"When one viewer choose a bird, and another choose a tree, the bird will rest on the tree; and if another viewer choose thunder, the bird will fly away because it gets scared," explained co-curator Randy Chan.

"So everything is interacting with each other, everything is interacting with the world."

The fourth edition of "i Light Marina Bay" features 25 art installations, of which 14 are by local artists and students. There are also works of international artists from China, Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Israel, Norway and the United States, all of which were designed with sustainability in mind.

Twenty-six-year-old Chinese artist Feng Jiacheng and his partner Huang Yuanbei will showcase their work named "Moon Haze." Visitors will be treated to a giant moon sitting right in the middle of the city, which will produce a very tranquil and peaceful atmosphere. However, they may also notice that the brightness of the moon will change from day to day, and this is all based on the air quality of the spot on that particular day.

"The brightness of the 'Moon Haze' is determined by the air quality of the site itself, so if it turns brighter, it shows the air quality of Singapore is better, and vice versa," said Feng.

Other installations include "Lampshade" by Norwegian artist Snøhetta, which is made of simple bamboo structures covered in photovoltaic cells to prevent sunlight from entering its interior in the day, while lighting up intensively at night, using solar energy to power a thousand lamps. "Angles of freedom" by German and Israel artists, meanwhile, involves five giant, colorful wings for visitors to interact with.

This year's festival will run until March 27 and is free to the public. Endit