Organised by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, i Light Marina Bay is Asia’s leading sustainable light art festival.
i Light Singapore, previously known as i Light Marina Bay, is Asia’s leading sustainable light art festival held in Marina Bay, the Civic District, Singapore River and Raffles Terrace at Fort Canning Park.
Held since 2010, i Light Singapore showcases light art installations created by artists from Singapore and around the world. These light art installations are designed with energy-saving lighting or environmentally-friendly materials to encourage festival goers and the general public to adopt sustainable habits in their everyday lives. The Festival also features a range of fringe activities for visitors to enjoy, bringing vibrancy to public spaces in our city centre.
General admission is free
28th Januarry – 24th February
SUN – THU: 7:30PM – 11:00PM
FRI – SAT: 7:30PM – 12:00AM
Instagram hastag: #ilightsingapore
In 2019, the festival will kick off on 28 January in conjunction with the Singapore Bicentennial commemoration, with over 30 sustainable light art installations complemented by exciting programmes.
2019 Installations
The Time Vortex @ The Helix bridge
How fantastic would it be if one could travel in time? Excited by the prospect of time travel, The Time Vortex attracts curious visitors to walk towards the tempting vortex that comes to life on The Helix bridge. In the middle of the bridge, people will be surrounded by beautiful moving lights, whizzing through space. Regardless of background, culture, religion, country or race, people will be drawn to this amazing space and get an opportunity to interact with one another on this specially programmed bridge during the Festival.
By Vendel and de Wolf (The Netherlands)
Lighthouse of Time @ ArtScience Museum Façade
For i Light Singapore – Bicentennial Edition, the façade of ArtScience Museum is transformed into a lighthouse for a new age; a gigantic light sculpture of dancing lights that we see every day.
Viewers are immersed in an atmosphere created by an abstracted dance of light and shadow, the coloured lights appear to possess mass and weight and seem to model the Museum façade by playing with the perception of space. Signaling a point of reference and providing an intangible constant in time, these lights orchestrate a spectrum of emotions in the viewers.
By Danny Rose (France)
DUNE @ Lotus Pond at ArtScience Museum
DUNE is the landscape of light, which interacts with human behaviour. The hybrid of nature and technology is composed of hundreds of fibers that brighten according to the motions and touch of passing visitors.
Visitors become a direct part of the artwork, enhancing social interactions between themselves and the landscape.
By Daan Roosegaarde (The Netherlands)
Why Green? @ Event Square
Green is, and will be our country’s binding medium. Coming from every corner of the globe, our landscape is a tangible confluence of connections from all over the world. Inspired by walks through the streets and cycles through the parks of Singapore, Why Green? posits various species in our country that hint at who we are. Instead of a literal collection of the plants, the white 3D printed flowers are a timeless catalogue of our present and history, while offering a glimpse into what our digital future could be.
By DP Architects – Ng San Son, Bob Teo, Josiah Leong, Johann Lim, Jireh Lee, Theodore Goh, Shawn Teo, DP Lighting (Singapore)
The Rainbow Connection @ Mist Walk (near Event Square)
The Rainbow Connection is a display of solar light modules suspended to form a shifting prismatic projection on the ground. The modules come together to form a canvas of light that explores the fantastical dreamscape of the deep sea, the woods, and the clouds. As the modules gently rotate and sway in the wind, the sculpture seems to come alive with shifting shadows, projecting the imagination of the creator.
The light units are made from upcycled cookie containers combined with solar lights. Co-created with the community, the art piece is a portrayal of the social fabric that holds individuals together. While every individual is different, every individual has a part to play to form something bigger.
In collaboration with Bold at Work, Lion Befrienders, NTUC Health, Pacific Activity Centre, Readable & Catchplus, Woodlands Health x Sunlove Senior Activity Centre, Yishun Health x Touch Community, and Wellness Kampung.
By Yun (Singapore)
Prospegtive Perspective @ Marina Bay lower boardwalk
Prospegtive Perspective is an installation that explores the expressive potential of everyday objects. Ubiquitous across all residences in Singapore, the humble clothing peg is easily recognisable to most Singaporeans. The sight of pegged laundry on bamboo poles, dancing with the breeze at HDB flats – the team is fascinated by how such a simple object could bring across so much local flavour. Adopting the clothing peg as their building module, they hope that their installation brings joy to those who can see the peg in a new light. Further inspired by stories of Singaporeans through the ages building the city, each single peg is replicated and connected to form layers, creating an impression of Singapore’s signature skyline. With the installation facing the city skyline across Marina Bay, acting as a projection of future buildings, the installation extends the existing skyline, serving as an imaginative bridge to the future.
By Carnation Kng Ni Xin, Low Jo Ann and Justina Teng Yimin from National University of Singapore (Singapore)
The Floating Lighthouse @ Marina Bay lower boardwalk steps
The Floating Lighthouse is a metaphor of lightness and interactivity that intrigues the sense of sight, hearing and touch. It is made up of sustainable materials; flexible, resilient and resourceful, just like the people of Singapore. As the lighthouses gently float in Marina Bay, visitors are invited to activate buttons to play unique sounds complemented by lights radiating out from the top of the floats. Synced with music, these floats become a form of beacon reminding visitors of the convergence in and out of the port of call, our country Singapore while welcoming them to our home.
By Milenko Prvacki, Ryf Zaini and Dr. Robert Casteels (Singapore)
Shadow Exposed @ Mist Walk (next to Red Dot Design Museum)
Shadow Exposed plays with the nature of projections being both moving images and a source of light. It invites visitors to interact with the installation using their own shadows to reveal or conceal layered images. On a large screen stretched along the Mist Walk, layers of images from Singapore through the decades will be projected. Depending on where the visitor stands, his/her shadow will reveal different layers that offer a glimpse into Singapore’s history and its evolution.
By Judy K Suh x Visual Feeder (USA)
Sails Aloft @ Marina Bay waterfront promenade
With their feet planted on the gunwale, their fists tightly gripping the ropes and their gazes turned upwind, the racers are as much part of the boat as the wood itself. And as they hear the starting signal, they set the sails aloft and the sampan panjang picks up speed without delay.
Inspired by the original sampan panjang of the Orang Laut and by its later racing variations, Sails Aloft is a holographic art installation that creates a snapshot of a 19th century sailboat race in the region. Visible from both The Promontory and Mist Walk, the artwork is designed to catch the wind, just like the boat it is based on. And when it expands, it shows not just one race boat, but also some glimpses of its competitors, who are still neck and neck!
Sails Aloft is part of the Biangle Studio’s Ghost Ship series of installations.
By Biangle Studio (Estonia)
Shades of Temporality @ Marina Bay Link Mall entrance
What does it mean to use time as an element for artistic composition? Moving images are in fact the manifestation of time as visual phenomenon, sequences as virtual records of possible worlds. Shades of Temporality combines video painting technology with content, exploring the themes of complexity, adaptation, social ecology, sustainability and temporality. It attempts to break the barrier between the spectators and creator, allowing the audience to participate in a critical process that enables them to work with moving images as a tool for mark making in public space. Using electronic paint rollers and custom software, the audience will be able to virtually “paint” videos, in real time, onto walls, creating endless combinations of moving murals in the process.
By SWEATSHOPPE – Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy (USA)
Cosmic Web @ Breeze Shelter
Cosmic Web is an interactive light installation inspired by the wolf spider’s web, which resembles a tunnel. This converging tunnel-like structure aims to highlight the resilience and self-determination of a communal living entity through hardship by creating a safe haven. At the same time, it also acts as a metaphor for a wormhole, which is associated with the transition and fluctuation of time.
This artwork seeks to create a moment of isolation in a communal space, inducing curiosity towards the materials used in this installation. The materials draw parallel to the strength of a spider’s web, which increases rather than weakens when a single strand breaks. Much like Singapore’s long-standing multicultural environment and mindset of unity, this installation hopes to celebrate the centuries of connectivity in Singapore through the ravages of time.
Merit Award of i Light Student Award
By Foo Hui Wen, Lim Yu Zhi and R.Yashini from LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore)
Squiggle @ The Promontory @ Marina Bay
Squiggle is a twisting mass of 200m of digital neon tubing on a custom built steel framework. The sea of twists and turns fills The Promontory @ Marina Bay and allows the visitors to interact with the installation using little joysticks that allow the change in colour, speed and direction – an abstract reflection of this very multicultural world we live in.
By Angus Muir (New Zealand)
City Gazing Singapore @ The Lawn @ Marina Bay
City Gazing Singapore shows the city of Singapore as if you would fly over it by night, with all street lights, homes and roads lit up. With a special animation, the work lets visitors time travel over the past 100 years, seeing how Singapore grew from a couple of key arterial roads into the international hub it is today.
Suspended over The Lawn @ Marina Bay, the city is turned upside down before the starry sky. In many ways, the moment of experiencing City Gazing Singapore feels both grand and humble. As the artist adopts the ‘overview effect’, there is a mental shift in awareness of how fragile life on earth is by exposing oneself to the vastness of the world. As the anchor piece of i Light Singapore’s sustainability hub, the work invites visitors to think more about the future of the city from a more humble and sustainable perspective.
By VOUW – Mingus Vogel and Justus Bruns (The Netherlands)
Les Footballeurs @ Lawn next to One Marina Boulevard
Les Footballeurs captures the powerful movement of two football players; the attacker striking the ball and the goalkeeper making a save. The spectator feels the tension and power in the actions of these footballers. With just the use of LEDs, real movements of Singapore’s favourite sport are captured and transmitted instantly to the viewers, proving how powerful movement is.
By Rémi Brun (France)
Facey Thing @ One Marina Boulevard
Facey Thing is a fun and satirical celebration of the coming together of selfie culture and universal surveillance to create hyperreal simulated images of ourselves through the art of play.
As passers-by come into view of the camera, facial tracking will identify their faces and blow them up onscreen as per spy TV shows. Then when individuals become engaged and move closer to the screen, they can interact creatively by virtually painting with their faces.
In Collaboration with LUX Festival, Wellington, New Zealand.
By Uji Studios (New Zealand)
Time Traveller @ Clifford Square
In this fast-changing era, everything seems to be easily forgotten from our collective memory. Inspired by bamboo fish traps, an artifact of a recent past that already seems too distant to be bridged between generations,Time Traveller is a visitor from the past to our present.
Situated between One Fullerton – a result of development of the new city and Clifford Pier – the old landing point for travellers who arrived in Singapore via sea, Time Traveller stands tall between the old and the new as a bridge between generations.
By Eko Prawoto (Indonesia)
Flower Clock @ One Fullerton
Inspired by the relationship between blooming flowers and time, this delightful artwork rotates to simulate the movement of a clock. Flower Clock celebrates Singapore as a Garden City while the rotating flowers represent the process of time blossoming as a tangible nature.
By You Fan Zhou, Guo Qian Ling, Song Le Jing and Lee Jian Wen from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (China)
The Cat in the Garden @ Merlion Park
Light waves inject energy into the Merlion to create images that reveal scenes of nature together with snippets of Singapore’s daily life.
The Cat in the Garden combines the early days of a pure natural world, calm and contemplative, with a multicultural modern world we live in today that is festive and full of life. The viewers will travel through seven colours of the light spectrum from red to violet, alluding to a rainbow; a poetic bridge to nature.
In collaboration with Video Mapping Festival, Lille, France.
Presented by Singapore Tourism Board
By Loom Prod (France)
Oriflammes @ Jubilee Bridge
Hundreds of vertical flags on Jubilee Bridge are animated by kaleidoscopic lighting as Oriflammes flaps with the gentle breeze. Connecting two opposite ends of the waters with a dynamic display of colours, this artwork combines light, colours and movement. Alive night and day, crossing the bridge is like a journey towards new horizons.
By Sebastien Lefevre (France)
In light of Singapore’s Bicentennial, a carpet of information occurring in real time is projected under Esplanade Bridge. TIME FRAME uses information from www.worldometers.info to report, celebrate and engender awareness on the development of Singapore in relation to the world. Pedestrians will stumble upon the swiftness of the world’s pace while contextualizing Singapore’s outstanding development. Technology and information blend in an immaterial manner under the physicality of the bridge, where TIME FRAME offers an unprecedented experience of data-human awareness in real time.
By DONIS (The Netherlands)
HALO @ Esplanade Park
“If art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.” – Anon.
HALO is a new participatory sonic and visual kinetic environment from the makers of Illumaphonium from i Light Marina Bay 2018. 200 ‘halos’, representing Singapore’s Bicentennial, are visually linked and arranged in vertical columns; each representing the never-ending flow of the present moment. This work is semi-autonomous and creates evolving patterns of sound and light with interaction from the participants. By participating in music making, visitors create a link to the visitors of the past, present and the future.
By Michael Davis (United Kingdom)
Time Rhythm @ Anderson Bridge
Since the ancient era, rhythm has been a close representation of time. Music, a universal language, is the oldest way of connecting people and expressing emotions. Time Rhythm showcases time passing through musical rhythms of Singapore through visual patterns.
Presented as a gigantic light metronome on Anderson Bridge, the artwork will drive through different time scapes. The entire bridge is transformed into a musical instrument, playing with slow and fast tempos, evolution and even silence.
Co-created by Martin Harman
Xavi Bové and Onionlab (Spain)
Cenotaph for a Stone @ Waterboat House Garden
Cenotaph for a Stone serves as a reinterpretation of the Singapore Stone as what it was, what it is and what it could have been. Taking cues from the stone’s decimation in 1843, the installation seeks to monumentalise the event that forever perpetuated its mysticism, as well as set a factual context to the stone that is commonly misconstrued by the fictionalised ‘Badang’ folklore.
The installation comprises 51 ‘rock fragments’ on steel pedestals, with the 52nd pedestal left empty, hinting to the only piece that remains of the Singapore Stone (with its whereabouts known), which currently resides in the National Museum of Singapore. The ‘rock fragments’ are placed in an orchestrated fashion that hypothesizes what the stone could have looked like. This ‘faux’ stone can be seen as a full, whole piece when viewed from the front of the installation. However, this shifts to a time-warped explosion as the visitor walks around its perimeter.
By Bryan Joseph Cadag, Loo Quan Le and Zulkarnain Bin Mohd Zin from National University Singapore (Singapore)
Where do stories begin / Where do stories end @ Cavenagh Bridge
Where do stories begin / Where do stories end is a two-part, text-based and site-specific installation that invites us to consider the notion of history as a series of layered stories that unfold and fold into one another perpetually. The two parts of the title prompt us to reflect on what we know (or what we think we know) of Singapore’s founding history, and to consider how stories in history are always purposefully framed with specific beginnings and ends. Who decides on where a story starts and ends? What more could we learn from other perspectives yet to be heard or explored? How do we begin to tell our own stories—of ourselves, of places, people, and things that surround us; and what would their endings be?
Supported by National Arts Council
By Michael Lee and Perception3 (Singapore)
Bridges of Time @ Singapore River in front of Asian Civilisations Museum
Bridges of Time tells a poetic story of a universal traveller who sails through time and space to reach this flourishing island. Spectators are guided through the timeless journey of travellers from yesterday, today and tomorrow, discovering and rediscovering Singapore throughout centuries. An immersive multimedia show presented in the Singapore River for the very first time, Bridges of Time creates a breathtaking ancient landscape against our contemporary skyline. Every night, an enchanted scenery of light, sound, projection and water enlivens the river.
Once upon a time, the Bridges of Time …
By ACTLD (Belgium)
With A View @ River Promenade along Parliament House
Singapore shophouses are a visible canvas that portrays Singapore’s intriguing multicultural and architectural influences throughout the years. Its unique windows are a quintessential representation of our past, a part of the culture that is full of character adding to the identity of the city.
With a View is an artwork made of parallel mirrors in the shape of our shophouse windows, creating a series of smaller and smaller reflections that appear to recede into an infinite distance. Through our reflection, we discover the essential and transformative qualities that we need to become whole and fulfilled, to grow and expand and gear towards the journey to find out who we are.
By Superiore Design Associates – Ryan Linardy and Lim Cheng Jun (Singapore)
Good Fortune @ Elgin Bridge Underpass
Good Fortune is a visualisation of rain inspired by emotions it causes in different cultures. For some, dark clouds before the impending rain is an alarm of storms and floods, while for others, it is a ‘sweet rain’; an omen of upcoming purification, nourishment and a state of meditation. In a city, rain is a troublesome companion to inconveniences in life, but in farmlands, the fall of the first raindrop is a moment of alleviation. This work is a compound of feelings caused by the phenomenon attempting to create a moment of reflection in our viewers.
In collaboration with Bella Skyway Festival, Torun, Poland
Olga Grybowicz and Kasper Hein (Poland)
Run Beyond is an incitement to go over the limits imposed by reason. With a man taking a seemingly impossible jump against the backdrop of modern Singapore, Elgin Bridge becomes the place of liberating action. The artwork drives individuals to overcome fears and constraints in order to open themselves, with the power of imagination, to other cultures, new friendships and unknown horizons.
By Angelo Bonello (Italy)
Constructive Interference @ North Boat Quay
Constructive Interference bridges people together through the use of light and matter. Moments of unpredictability in human interactions are captured on both ends of the artwork, manifesting itself into a unique and dynamic array of colours that converges towards the middle in a wavelike form. Its unique manipulation of light translates the imperceptible kinetic energy of its users into a physical form, one that amplifies or diminishes depending on the input of its users. This dynamic artwork and its ever-changing form are a representation of Singapore’s bustling cityscape.
Merit Award of i Light Student Award Co-created with Million Lighting
InPhase from Singapore University of Technology and Design (Singapore)
Land-pass Bird @ Raffles Terrace at Fort Canning Park
Land-pass Bird is a mythical bird with its body azure in colour and its features glowing at night. It is said that very few people have seen these birds. During fall, they fly in flocks towards small and large islands and reefs situated near the Straits of Singapore and hunt for a type of dinoflagellates known as “sea sparkle”. On a quiet dark night, their flourescent blue feathers sparkle in the scattered moonlight as the birds perch on the trees of Raffles Terrace, overlooking the Singapore River.
Presented by NParks
Huang Chin-Fu (Taiwan)
Keys of Light @ Raffles Terrace at Fort Canning Park
Keys of Light is a modular interactive piano installation that encourages audience participation. By playing the piano, a musical algorithm reveals captivating graphic compositions inspired by Singapore’s architectural icons on the Lighthouse at Raffles Terrace, Fort Canning Park. With different notes being played on the piano, every player creates a unique visual outcome, leaving no performances the same. A small gesture of a single piano key results in a theatrical expression connecting music, animation and architecture.
By Mr.Beam (The Netherlands)
https://www.ilightsingapore.sg/Discover/Installations/Reflecting-Holons
https://www.ilightsingapore.sg/Discover/Installations/Reflecting-Holons
Blowing bubbles brings a smile to the young and the old through generations; a universal joy that gives certain connectivity. It is an artwork which is multicultural and an experience that brings technology and wonder together. It is a bridge in time and a bridge through cultures.
Presented by NParks
Michiel Martens and Jetske Visser (The Netherlands)
