Thermally Speaking: LeuWebb Projects with Mulvey & Banani Lighting
Sept 9, 2020
Revealing our body heat in three-dimensional space through experiential illumination, “Thermally Speaking” used thermography and infrared measuring instruments to uncover the fields of energy of which we’re all apart. The responsive installation transformed Toronto’s Fort York Visitor Centre for Nuit Blanche 2019, providing a glimpse into a future of body temperature readings, creative data visualization and surveillance fields.
Audiences were invited to move through, over and around the ramp of the Visitor Centre both as observers and subjects of observation, participants in dialogue with the phenomena around them. Thermal imaging cameras relayed and translated the heat energy of visitors into a shifting curtain of light, animating the channel glass facades of the existing building.
Designed by LeuWebb Projects and produced in collaboration with Mulvey & Banani Lighting as part of their CITYLights Toronto initiative, the installation also provided an opportunity for technical development for students in the field of lighting design and architecture.
Technical Sheet
Official Project Name: Thermally Speaking
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Client: City of Toronto, Nuit Blanche
Artists/designers: LeuWebb Projects with Mulvey & Banani Lighting Inc.
Project Manager: Stephen Kaye (Mulvey & Banani Lighting Inc.)
Design team: Christine Leu, Alan Webb (LeuWebb Projects)
Collaborators Engineers: Paul Boken, Sepideh Nabaee, CityLightsTO
Lighting Designer: Mulvey & Banani Lighting Inc.
Project sector: Installation art, interactive, public art, lighting design
Project completion date: October 2019
Photographer: Doublespace Photography, Simon Tanenbaum