Perpetual (tropical) Sunshine is a screen made of 300 150W infrared light bulbs. It transposes the real-time state of the summer sun on the 23rd South parallel.
The bulbs diffuse a light and heat video sequence of the sun between 600 & 1000nm, according to the actual climatic conditions of the tropic of Capricorn. Each time the diffused sun gets out of the camera field, the system seeks a new active sun in another place & in a different time zone. The image of this active sun, diffused by the lamps, heats the space located in front of it. Spectators can track the path of the sun, thereby experiencing an abstract and never-ending planetary form of day and of summer, across longitudes and time zones.
The ‘tropical’ software, developed by fabric | ch, retrieves live weather information from internet, selects randomly a sunny tropical city, launches the corresponding video sequence of the sun & through video analysis transmits in real time the intensity of light to 300 light bulbs individually.
Created for the Lyon Festival of Light 2005 (see Nicolas’ images of the festival).
Related: Light Art from Artificial Light.