Over the past few weeks, a small design team from Woods Bagot Sydney has been working on a project inside a warehouse near Sydney airport. They’ve been building an interactive lighting installation called Planet Under Construction (PUC), for Vivid Sydney 2013 — the annual light and sound festival that sees hundreds of installations and happenings by Sydney’s creative community around the CBD and Circular Quay,this year, from 24 May to 10 June.
On the PUC team are Guillermo Fernandez, Danny Wehbe, Penny Craswell, Young Lee, Mohammed Khaled, Amanda Gore, Thomas Hale, India Collins and Sophie Bennett. PUC is a spherical sculpture with witches hats (orange construction cones) tied onto the steel frame with bungee cord. You need two people to do this – one inside the frame and one outside, so the frame is made with an entry hatch that allows one person snugly through.
When the switch is flicked on Vivid, PUC will be found under the Cahill Expressway, Circular Quay, near the corner of George and Alfred Streets. It will be fitted with a smoke machine and interactive lighting programming that will react to the sounds of passing trains, emitting lighting patterns diffused through cracks and holes in the sculpture.
“We’ve been testing the smoke machine over the past few days. Now that the planet is mostly built, the structure is even more beautiful than we had imagined it would be. It’s really a sculptural installation that draws on the symbolism of the construction cone to make a “planet” – but it is also fun and playful,” says Guillermo Fernandez. “Kids are going to love it!”
