Illuminating Cities: Explore Stunning Light Art

Today I have five beautiful pieces of urban art photography for you! As you maybe know, I sometimes feature some top shots to make mostly unknown, but good pictures more popular. So I have some interesting visual content, you see new urban shots and the photographers and/ or artists will maybe become some fame. All the following photos came from the Urban Artcore Flickr-Group. You can join that group and add your own shots! I hope some of you will get some inspiration for their next artworks or photographs. Have fun and a nice Friday-afternoon. ...

“Will you marry me?” is an very interesting question - There’s always a lot fuss around it. Also Derick Childress and his friend had a lot of work with planning and making the actions for that special question. With a lot of spot-lights, a good camera and some motion, they created a giant light-writing marriage-proposal - “Emily, will you marry me?” - in Raleigh, North Carolina at the end of the last year. ...

There are a lot of articles about urban light art in the Urban Artcore archives, but today I have a real treat for you: An interview with the famous light art collective Luzinterruptus from Spain! Luzinterruptus is a great example for the creative handling with light in an urban environment. They did a lot of great and impressing urban interventions, which are always going through the urban art press and blogs around the world. For this reason and because of I didn’t know anything about the artists themselves, I did that interview with them: ...

In the last month, I wrote a lot about building projections around the world, but I never saw an better one! The word of future is interactive - People don’t only want to be part of their environment, they want to create their environment with their own actions, they want interact with it. The new creative interaction collective YesYesNo, which is specialized in the creation of engaging, magical installations that combine creativity and artistic visions, recently turned the Auckland Ferry Building in Auckland City into an interactive playground: ...

3D video projections on buildings are a never ending story! There’s no week without new videos and photo of those great light projection artworks. These technically complex art installations are en vogue and possibly the urban communication tool of 2009. “Impressive and stylish projections on buildings, a renewing way of communicating.For those who want to carry out a message in a striking and visually attractive way with guaranteed exposure.” (NuFormer) ...

Imagine an ancient castle, its weathered stones suddenly pulsating with vibrant colors and dynamic shapes. This is the captivating experience offered by Seeper’s “Battle of Branchage,” a groundbreaking 3D architectural projection that pushes the boundaries of light and art. Seeper, an interactive arts and technology collective founded in 1998, was invited to the Branchage Film Festival in Jersey to create this mesmerizing installation. Using a single Christie 25k projector, they meticulously mapped their animations onto the façade of a historic castle, transforming its static architecture into a dynamic canvas. ...

I had already mentioned one thing or two about light art and its different uses by street artists. This time I will show you a really interesting video, produced by Sweatshoppe, a viedo artists and multimedia performers collective. The developed the LED paint roller! It’s a paint roller, which actually doesn’t paint any paint. Instead it is made of green LEDs (light emitting diodes) which work in conjunction with a camera next to a projector which is programmed with software that tracks its movements. ...

Between November 6th and 15th, the “Forum for Light in Art & Architecture - Glow” will take place in Eindhoven! This years subject is “Being public”, what refers to the idea of seeing public space as an open space without any access restrictions and as the space of open discourses and free shaping of collective opinions. “Due to the dedication of “CityDynamiek Eindhoven”, from November, 6th to 15th, 2009, the city center of Eindhoven turns again into a forum of interventions, installations, performances and events based on the phenomena of artificial light.” ...

Here’s the seventh issue of the three urban top shot from the Urban Artcore Flickr-group! Over 330 members with about 2000 photos of architecture, urban art, street art, graffiti or other street photography joined my group - thanks for taking part! The “Urban Top Shots” series features every week the three best Urban Artcore shots of the last seven days. Perhaps you have a great shot of urban art, graffiti, architecture, street design, or other urban impressions, too – Become a member of the Urban Artcore Flickr group and add your photos! ...

As I told you some weeks ago, light art and facade projection are in vogue this year. More and more audiovisual art installations can be found worldwide and more and more artists use modern technologies for their works. Today I got an e-mail including a link to a superb audiovisual facade projection, made by the Telenoika Cultural Association at the “Ingravid Festival of Contemporary Culture” in Figueras, Spain. I was impressed while watching it. The sound, the lights, the shadows, everything dovetails nicely! ...