NEST
NEST is a large-scale kinetic light sculpture commissioned by the Mayor of London for the launch of Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture 2019. Conceived as a luminous gathering place, NEST acts as a beacon that brings a community together in a playful environment where they can find warmth within a collective experience.
The work in its simplest form is an audio visual instrument, an instrument that plays with our perception of space by creating structures and volumes of light that the audience can interact with. The music, sound design and light animation will also draw inspiration from the landscape that frames the piece. Physically illuminating the surrounding environment by interacting with the trees, moat and foliage.
Existing in the liminal space between art, science and technology, it blurs the boundaries of installation, live performance and public sculpture and enchants the everyday world by revealing the natural forces that exist around us.
We collaborated with composer Erland Cooper to create a 15-minute long multichannel soundscape that draws inspiration from murmuration of starlings. Each component draws inspiration from the landscape that frames the piece. Physically illuminating the surrounding environment by interacting with the trees, moat and foliage.
NEST draws upon principles from perceptual research to explore how the eye gathers depth, form and motion cues to construct our sense of space. To make a complex form out of light, the team have harnessed the mathematics of ruled surface geometries to create the sensation of curved form, out of linear light projection. Hyperboloid, Helicoid, paraboloid forms, alongside Moebius bands appear as sonic structures, volumes in the sky, rendered in light alone.
NEST is constructed from a thirty meter diameter circular array of moving head lights and a spatialised audio system, all of which is raised 4 meters off the ground. The audience can walk in and around the structure. When entering the circle, they are met with a mesmerising experience of kinetic light and sound.
Commissioned by the Mayor of London for the inaugural London Borough of Culture, NEST was conceived as a celebration of community and shared experience. Created in collaboration with Waltham Forest’s cultural programme, the installation served as both a landmark and a symbol, an illuminated meeting point for people to gather and reflect through art.
Credits
Concept: Marshmallow Laser Feast
Directed by: Ersin Han Ersin, Barnaby Steel, Robin McNicholas
Executive Producer: Eleanor (Nell) Whitley
Senior Producer: Mike Jones
Producer: Ulla Winkler / Mark Logue
Studio Manager: Alexa Romanoff
Finance Controller: Ana Salustiano
Lighting director: Matthew Button
Audio spatialisation: James Bulley
Visual programming & animation: Adam Heslop
Lighting & Rigging: Colour Sound Experiment
Fabrication: Wyliewood
Audio engineering: Tom Richards
In collaboration with composer Erland Cooper
Commissioned by London Borough of Culture
Thanks to
Lorna Lees – Director
Sam Hunt – Creative Director
Niccy Halifax- Executive Producer Opening Event