The Sydney Writers’ Festival is over, and Vivid is about to light the town up. In this house we’ve been aware of a Vivid project that looks very interesting, and the Sydney Morning Herald site put up a teaser for it on the weekend:
They buzz like fireflies, light up like fireflies, but forget about calling them insects. Social Firefly is the latest installation to be announced as part of the Vivid festival, and is made up of a smattering of interactive robots flying around the fig tree at the Overseas Passenger Terminal.
The creatures are a collaboration between designers Liam Ryan and Jason McDermott from the firm Arup and Frank Maguire.
They have been programmed to respond to light, and to each other.
‘When light is shone on one of these little creatures, it will react and change the way it is moving and shine light around its immediate neighbourhood,’ McDermott said.
Visitors to the installation will be able to shine torches on the ‘fireflies’ to provoke a response, and see the ripple effect of that on the community in the tree.
Vivid starts of Friday, and Fireflies is scheduled to be switched on at 6 o’clock.
Me fail? I fly! 