Green Hippo

Searchlight #1 with Tim Knowles

Searchlight #1 with Tim Knowles

Is there no end to our Sean’s artistic talents? Following on from our report on Colin Dunne’s dance piece in HippoWire, Sean has recently been busy working on an art installation by Tim Knowles in the very posh and serious business district around London’s Piccadilly. Here the Economist Plaza played host to Tim’s latest work, Searchlight #1.

This interactive installation had a moving spotlight which followed pedestrians as they moved across the Plaza below it, inspiring many differing reactions in the unwitting participants.

“Searchlight #1 encourages people to perform in the spotlight and brings life, mischief and playfulness into the urban space,” claims Tim, “but also highlights the increasing prevalence of CCTV and surveillance technologies within our society.”

The system he used involved infrared lighting and a surveillance camera which only picks up on the infrared part of the spectrum. As people moved across the plaza they appeared on the ‘virtual’ video screen. The computer detected pixel changes which then instructed the automated lantern (a Clay Paky Goldenscan provided by Essential Lighting) to follow those points. “The light was quite ‘flighty’, stepping rapidly from one person to another depending on who is moving most. If the person stopped or slowed down it automatically flicked to another,” explains Tim.

This is done using Hippotizer software specially developed by Sean who worked out the technical side of the concept and wrote a customised plug-in. (“It’s rather like using a Hippotizer in reverse!” he says.) The plug-in is actually a development of one created for a previous Knowles installation, Field of Play, a permanent public commission in Millennium Square, Bristol, where Tim first linked up with Green Hippo in 2006.

“I wanted to see what could be done with the technology,” explains Tim whose artworks centre largely around motion and light “and see how far we can push the boundaries.” We are as curious as Tim to see where he will take it next.

More information on Tim’s work can be found on his website at www.timknowles.co.uk