NVA’s internationally touring public artwork Speed of Light arrived in Glasgow for the first time with a powerful re-staging of Ghost Peloton at the Whisky Bond in Port Dundas on 13 November 2015. The event was the first of its kind in Port Dundas, Glasgow’s newest Cultural District, which is the focus of a radical regeneration vision to become a vibrant new city neighbourhood sitting on the Glasgow Canal, with incredible views over the city’s skyline. Ghost Peloton was staged outside the Whisky Bond, originally built as a bonded warehouse for Highland Distilleries in 1957 and now home to a growing community of thinkers, designers, makers and doers.

Using cycling as the core of mass communal movement incorporated within stunning large-scale projection and set to an original score, a collective of ghost bikes and riders were illuminated using NVA’s bespoke LED light suit which can instantaneously change colour, flash-rate and luminosity. Inspired by the wheel in motion, the movement of massed participants choreographed by Phoenix Dance Theatre transformed the canal-side landscape into an open canvas carrying a new visual language of light in motion.

Ghost Peloton was the acknowledged highlight of the Yorkshire Festival 2014, celebrating the build up to the Grand Départ and the opening two stages of the Tour de France. This iteration marked the arrival of the world LUCI conference to Glasgow, 10 years since the Annual General Meeting was held in Glasgow in 2005. The 2005 AGM showcased the work that had been done to change the image of the city by lighting significant landmarks, and NVA was commissioned to produce Radiance – Glasgow’s first Lighting Festival. In 2015, the UN International Year of Light, Glasgow will host a Cities Under the Microscope event – one of the three main events of the LUCI calendar.

“The fluidity is breathtaking and becomes, as darkness falls, oddly moving. The peloton starts to resemble a mass of sensors, restlessly taking the temperature of the evening sky. This is the mystery of public art, that if done well it can create an invisible barrier around itself, placing it in a magically different world from the ‘real’ one just inches away.” – Laura Thompson, The Telegraph.

Ghost Peloton Glasgow marked the first staging of NVA’s Speed of Light in Scotland since the work’s premiere on Arthur’s Seat in 2012, as part of the Cultural Olympiad for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The work has since toured internationally, responding to docklands in Japan, reformed urban sites in England, and the vast industrial landscapes of the Ruhr in Germany.

Ghost Peloton Glasgow was created by NVA and Phoenix Dance Theatre with support from Glasgow City Council, BIGG Regeneration, Scottish Canals (as part of the Canal Regeneration Partnership) and the Whisky Bond, as part of the LUCI ‘Cities Under the Microscope’ Event.

Ghost Peloton was created for Yorkshire Festival 2014 with support from Arts Council England, Yorkshire Water, Welcome to Yorkshire and Yorkshire Local Authorities