Îlot de chaleur At The Quartier des Spectacles
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Following the installation earlier this winter at Montréal’s Quartier des Spactacles of Impulse, a series of giant illuminated and sound-producing seesaws, the latest installation – just in time for the city’s Montréal en Lumière festival is Îlot de chaleur (‘Island of Warmth’), an urban campfire consisting of 220 light bulbs that come to life, light up and change based on the movements of the people gathered around it.
This interactive, musical and luminous experience, produced by the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership and Illuminart, was conceived and designed by Montreal company ATOMIC3.
“We wanted to highlight Montreal’s festive and inclusive tradition by building a ‘fire’ downtown using lights that provide warmth and bring people together,” says Louis-Xavier Gagnon-Lebrun, lighting designer at ATOMIC3.
“We are pleased to collaborate with MONTRÉAL EN LUMIÈRE once again,” says Jacques Primeau, chair of the Quartier des Spectacles Partnership’s board of directors. “The Quartier des Spectacles Partnership and the festival have much common ground, including a shared passion for animating public spaces. Îlot de chaleur joins the innovative and original collection of works and activities developed to entertain and provide warmth to festivalgoers. These works complement the extensive line-up of activities presented in the Quartier des Spectacles by this major winter festival.”
Montrealers and visitors are invited to have a seat in one of the eight double rocking chairs placed around the campfire. To stoke the urban fire, comprised of 220 incandescent bulbs, motion sensors were installed on and under the chairs surrounding the installation. The rocking of the chairs acts as a virtual bellows blowing on the fire. And when people dance and jump near the fire, sparks fly up to the tip of the flames, at the very top of the 6-metre structure. And as people rock their chairs and dance around the luminous structure together, Îlot de chaleur lights up and crackles, with heat, smoke and light, becoming a visual and auditory symphony.
The Îlot de chaleur will be available from Thursday to Sunday weekly from now to March 5. (Time schedules vary.)
This is the sixth year that the Quartier des Spectacles has run contests for interactive lighting installations and chosen winning companies to brighten and entertain Montrealers and visitors in the city during the winter months.
Atomic3 is a creative studio active in the performing arts, lighting and multimedia technology. The company designs and produces interactive or contemplative urban installations that transform public spaces and encourage people to see their surroundings in new ways. The founders’ deep and diverse stagecraft experience gives their creations original narrative and poetic dimensions.
For the Quartier des Spectacles, Atomic3 has also created the interactive Luminothérapie installations Éclats de verre, presented in Parc Émilie-Gamelin in 2011, and Iceberg, for the Place des Festivals (2012). In collaboration with 20k, the firm also conceived and created Maëstro, an interactive installation that allowed the public to control the spouts of the Place des Festivals fountain.
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