The e-Luminate Festival will light up the streets of Cambridge between the 12th and the 23rd February 2014. The festival aims to connect art with technology and to promote low carbon innovation and the clean technology sector in the city. The launch event will take place at 7 pm on the 12th February in the Grand Arcade and will feature music and light inspired events before offering guided tours of the festival to the public. e-Luminate has initiated partnerships across Cambridge, with this years festival marking its first birthday.
The innovative programme includes one off light installations where the viewer is central to the art itself and is invited to experiment and to interact with the work. King’s College’s Wilkins screen will be illuminated with sensor activated lighting, meanwhile, Cambridge’s Mathematical bridge will also be illuminated in response to the sound of audience’s voices captured in realtime. The installation aims to directly engage visitors and locals with the geometry of the bridge, highlighting its structure and setting. Finally, the playful ‘O+X installation’ on The Guildhall will enable passers by to play noughts and crosses on the side of a building, this large-scale classic game will be controlled using paper electronic technology.
The festival aims to capture an audience of different ages. A monumental projection onto Senate House will be created from artworks drawn by children from Cambridge’s schools, with each of the smaller artworks will become part of a rotating globe. The resulting planet will be constantly remade from the children’s artworks and whilst floating on the centre of the building.
The festival has also teamed up with Panasonic and the Cambridge MakeSpace to teach young people to build hybrid toy cars and led lanterns. The workshops during the school half-term aim to encourage children to consider solutions to future environmental challenges and for adults the festival programme includes conferences and events to discuss sustainability and climate change.
Not only celebrating new and innovative technology in inspiring ways, e-Luminate also pays tribute to sustainable forms of lighting in a low tech way. A walking tour by candlelight will lead walkers through the city to some of the Universities’ chapels. The participants will carry lights with them, illuminating the chapels as they walk.
This festival has something for everyone with its unique collaboration between technology and the arts. Such collaborative practice between art and science is something that is starting to shape the Cambridge art scene as more and more artists respond to the scientific excellence that Cambridge has to offer and scientists and technology developers are realising the power that art can have.