LEDscape Bar is A-Glow-Glow At Hong Kong Museum Of Arts

May 9, 2008 5:09 PM

Hong Kong-based LED artist Teddy Lo has a reputation for his groundbreaking pieces of visual art. Committed to demonstrating both the illuminative and environmental benefits of LED lighting, he has used the latest Lighthouse LED technology for the maiden display of his newest—and biggest—creation, Phaeodaria.

An integral part of the A-Glow-Glow Macro Interactive Media Arts Exhibition, which took place at the peripheral area of the Hong Kong Museum of Art from April 11-20, 2008, Lo’s Phaeodaria comprised around 80 pieces of Lighthouse’s brand new creative video solution, the LEDscape® Bar, arranged to form an 26-foot diameter geodesic dome.

Inspired by Ernst Haeckel's illustrations of marine life forms, the project utilized wireless mobile telecommunications technologies to change the colors of the Lighthouse LEDscape Bar—illustrating in light the wireless information culture that Lo feels is highly representative of contemporary Hong Kong life. To achieve this, he recorded the signals outside a large department store at Causeway Bay in Hong Kong which he then decoded to form a playback signal for controlling the LEDscape Bar. Lighthouse LEDscape Bar comprises a matrix of 32 RGB LED pixels in a weatherproof enclosure measuring six-and-a-half-feet long by 35mm wide.

"LED is a revolutionary technology," says Lo. "It's very environmentally friendly and has a huge impact on the world. The new LEDscape bars provided me with the scale and mechanical flexibility that I was looking for. With incandescent light bulbs turning more than 80 percent of the supplied energy into heat, using LEDs can make a very positive impact on the problems of energy shortage and global warming. My job is to promote this technology artistically.”

With Lo and Lighthouse both absolutely committed to the very latest LED technology, the creation of Phaeodaria is a perfect illustration of the natural synergy between them. “As a company, Lighthouse is absolutely thrilled that Teddy Lo chose LEDscape Bar to construct this remarkable piece of art,” says Peter Chan, general manager of Lighthouse. “As well as Teddy’s artistic vision, Phaeodaria demonstrates the remarkable flexibility with which LEDscape Bar can be both installed and controlled. It is the perfect demonstration of how inventive thinking and the latest LED technology can produce truly outstanding results.”