Let There Be Light, Covent Garden, London, England

December 31, 2009

This festive season, Covent Garden’s A Very Merry Christmas offers old-fashioned nostalgia. Recognizing it has been a hard year for most, A Very Merry Christmas will provide a warm, traditional and family-focussed programme of events that will warm the heart and soul, while spreading Christmas cheer to all.

UnitedVisualArtists

British-based architectural arts and design collective UnitedVisualArtists return again this year with a bespoke light installation casting a warm glow throughout the historic Market Building. Following the success of last year’s futuristic light display, this year UVA has created four spectacular freefalling chandeliers made up of over 600 LED tubes and 46,000 individual LEDs.

UVA Light Show in Covent Gardens

UVA Light Show in Covent Garden, Copyright 2008 Capital and Counties, with permission from Covent Garden London

It’s dusk in the John Madejski garden of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. The winter light fades and a tranquil scene unfolds as a crowd of bright-eyed visitors wander mesmerised around a field of luminous, sound-emitting columns that thrust forth from the ground in an atmospheric, almost organic, electronic tableaux. The columns of light ebb and flow to the visitors’ movements, creating an immersive, constantly shifting visual and musical experience.

This is a glowing example of the work of art and design practice United Visual Artists (UVA), and now Covent Garden goers can enjoy these in-demand designers’ talents as they showcase a unique, futuristic sculptural light display, featuring three large-scale interactive ‘chandeliers’ within the iconic Market Building. It’s Christmas lights, Covent Garden-style.

The installation incorporates a modular lighting array created from hundreds of energy efficient, full colour LED tubes, delicately suspended in the spaces of the North and South Halls and the Central Avenue of the Market Building.

Individually controllable pixels encased within the tubes display an ever-changing display of swirling snow, gently falling in organic real-world patterns, and providing possibly the only white Christmas London will see this year. Full visitor interactivity comes through a handy touch screen panel situated in the South Hall of the Market Buildling, so at certain times of the day, visitors can create their very own snow storms.

For a suggested minimum donation to Crisis of £1 for 2 minutes, come and interact and control the “Constellation” light installation daily.

Visit: www.coventgardenlondonuk.com

History of Covent Garden www.coventgardenlondonuk.com/history-architecture

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