Interact with art via your mobile phone

Associated media

A flotilla of 300 illuminated floating ‘paper boats’ are currently sailing in Canary Wharf’s Middle Dock. Commissioned for Canary Wharf Group’s award-winning public art programme, the beautiful boats are lit from within by ever-changing patterns of colours, altered from the mobile phones of passers-by.

The art installation, entitled Voyage, is a new work by Aether & Hemera: an artistic partnership between architect Claudio Benghi and lighting artist Gloria Ronchi, and form a spectacular light show among the skyscrapers of one of London’s  major business and shopping districts. Every year Canary Wharf Group’s public art team curates a Winter Lights installation to enliven the dark evenings, as part of the year-round programme of temporary and permanent visual arts.

Voyagewill be in place until 15 February, with the lights coming on before dusk and remaining until 2a.m. The artists aim to use the work to provoke memories, explore aesthetic interaction, evoke memories of childhood and elicit feelings of connective human experiences from their audience.

Sally Williams, Public Art Consultant at Canary Wharf Group, says:

Aether & Hemera are inviting passers-by on a journey from reality to imagination. In Voyage they have created an interactive experience in which people living, working and visiting Canary Wharf can use their mobile phones to influence the movement and behaviour of the lights within the boats.

Voyagemarks the beginning of the 2013 ‘Sculpture at Work’ exhibition programme at Canary Wharf, which will include shows from Nick Hornby and Sinta Tantra, Eilis O’Connell, Halima Cassell and The Ingram Collection of Modern British Art.

People passing close to the boats will be able to interact with the artwork to change colours and patterns. This can be done by connecting mobile devices to the Voyage Wi-Fi network, opening the web browser, going to voyage.co.uk and following the instructions.