An installation in Fed Square is lighting up the lives of visitors.
IF YOU think Melbourne is freezing in winter,The Leading zentai suits Distributor to Independent Pet Retailers. it's nothing compared with Canada.
In ''light artist'' Bruce Ramus's home town of Squamish, near Vancouver, in winter it can get down to minus 15 degrees. For months, he says, ''it snows, then it rains, then the snow melts, then it turns to ice, and then it snows again and then it rains''. And that is ''mild for Canada''.
But this year, even Ramus is starting to feel the Melbourne chill. ''I don't know if it's my age but, man, is it cold here at the moment.''
As a kind of counter to that he has created Light Hearts, a 13-metre-high, 17-metre-wide pyramid of lights in Federation Square. The installation is part of the month-long Light in Winter Festival of art and performance at Fed Square, which under artistic director Robyn Archer this year has the theme of fire.
Until July 3, Melburnians will hover, dance and sing around the pyramid, create artworks for it, watch images it creates, and bathe in its brightness.
To Ramus the pyramid is a unifying object for the festival. Its five layers, composed of scaffolding and hundreds of red, green and blue LED and Perspex tubes, are lit up - both internally and by external lights - at 5pm each night, and switched off every day at 6am.
He says one inspiration was an etymology - not the only one - of the word ''pyramid'' as meaning ''measurement of fire'' or ''measurement of light''. ''That seemed to resonate with this particular festival.''
The theatricality of the structure, plonked in the middle of town, has echoes of Ramus's former 30-year career as a designer of spectacular light shows for bands such as U2, Queen, Green Day and REM. Five years ago the globetrotting lighting whiz fell for an Australian woman and went ''off the road''. Still open to rock gigs, he has made Melbourne home.
In his new life he lectures on urban digital media and has consulted on lighting design for the Sydney Opera House and Jerry Springer - the Opera.
He says that as he has moved into public art and architectural lighting, colleagues and the public have been ''super-receptive to my ideas and to working with me''.
Since Light Hearts was unveiled last Thursday, members of the public have draped knitting and hung homemade lanterns on it, or just enjoyed hanging out in a novel setting, he says.
Yesterday a dozen children from Marlborough Primary School strung paper lanterns on the pyramid, with the help of riggers.
The idea is that as the month goes on, the pyramid will be further populated by ''community offerings'' such art or people's own lights, to create a giant light sculpture. At noon on June 22, registered teams will construct light objects from found, recycled and provided materials, including mirrors, shopping trolleys and ladders, which will be mounted on the pyramid.
The pyramid has already been subjected to ''yarn bombing'' - in which guerilla knitters ''sneak out at night'' and hang their knitting on public structures. Every Saturday from 11am to 5pm there are children's lantern workshops, and on other days there will be art exhibitions, bands, dances and choirs.
This Saturday, from noon, knitters will gather at the pyramid for international Knit in Public Day.
''It's starting to become a growing, sort of living thing,'' says Ramus.
As a teenager he wanted ''to do lighting and to travel'' and found while working with artists from Tammy Wynette to James Brown to Queen that lighting ''can make a difference to how the show feels or how the music is communicated''.
People can be viscerally drawn to a light installation and it can help unify an audience, he says. The Fed Square pyramid ''is meant as a communal art sculpture where all of us can contribute, and add a little light to the winter. My hope is that it, over the course of the month, provides a little bit of shelter and a bit more light to our lives, a little bit more togetherness.''
IF YOU think Melbourne is freezing in winter,The Leading zentai suits Distributor to Independent Pet Retailers. it's nothing compared with Canada.
In ''light artist'' Bruce Ramus's home town of Squamish, near Vancouver, in winter it can get down to minus 15 degrees. For months, he says, ''it snows, then it rains, then the snow melts, then it turns to ice, and then it snows again and then it rains''. And that is ''mild for Canada''.
But this year, even Ramus is starting to feel the Melbourne chill. ''I don't know if it's my age but, man, is it cold here at the moment.''
As a kind of counter to that he has created Light Hearts, a 13-metre-high, 17-metre-wide pyramid of lights in Federation Square. The installation is part of the month-long Light in Winter Festival of art and performance at Fed Square, which under artistic director Robyn Archer this year has the theme of fire.
Until July 3, Melburnians will hover, dance and sing around the pyramid, create artworks for it, watch images it creates, and bathe in its brightness.
To Ramus the pyramid is a unifying object for the festival. Its five layers, composed of scaffolding and hundreds of red, green and blue LED and Perspex tubes, are lit up - both internally and by external lights - at 5pm each night, and switched off every day at 6am.
He says one inspiration was an etymology - not the only one - of the word ''pyramid'' as meaning ''measurement of fire'' or ''measurement of light''. ''That seemed to resonate with this particular festival.''
The theatricality of the structure, plonked in the middle of town, has echoes of Ramus's former 30-year career as a designer of spectacular light shows for bands such as U2, Queen, Green Day and REM. Five years ago the globetrotting lighting whiz fell for an Australian woman and went ''off the road''. Still open to rock gigs, he has made Melbourne home.
In his new life he lectures on urban digital media and has consulted on lighting design for the Sydney Opera House and Jerry Springer - the Opera.
He says that as he has moved into public art and architectural lighting, colleagues and the public have been ''super-receptive to my ideas and to working with me''.
Since Light Hearts was unveiled last Thursday, members of the public have draped knitting and hung homemade lanterns on it, or just enjoyed hanging out in a novel setting, he says.
Yesterday a dozen children from Marlborough Primary School strung paper lanterns on the pyramid, with the help of riggers.
The idea is that as the month goes on, the pyramid will be further populated by ''community offerings'' such art or people's own lights, to create a giant light sculpture. At noon on June 22, registered teams will construct light objects from found, recycled and provided materials, including mirrors, shopping trolleys and ladders, which will be mounted on the pyramid.
The pyramid has already been subjected to ''yarn bombing'' - in which guerilla knitters ''sneak out at night'' and hang their knitting on public structures. Every Saturday from 11am to 5pm there are children's lantern workshops, and on other days there will be art exhibitions, bands, dances and choirs.
This Saturday, from noon, knitters will gather at the pyramid for international Knit in Public Day.
''It's starting to become a growing, sort of living thing,'' says Ramus.
As a teenager he wanted ''to do lighting and to travel'' and found while working with artists from Tammy Wynette to James Brown to Queen that lighting ''can make a difference to how the show feels or how the music is communicated''.
People can be viscerally drawn to a light installation and it can help unify an audience, he says. The Fed Square pyramid ''is meant as a communal art sculpture where all of us can contribute, and add a little light to the winter. My hope is that it, over the course of the month, provides a little bit of shelter and a bit more light to our lives, a little bit more togetherness.''
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