James Johnson's visualisation for The Speed of Light at Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh

NVA, 1 of 5 Scottish artists shortlisted for Artists taking the lead

Aug 14, 2009

The Speed of Light, partnered by United Visual Artists (UVA) and Edinburgh International Festival, is one of five proposals from Scotland to be shortlisted for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, a programme of 12 major artistic events to take place around the UK at the same time as the Olympic and Paralympic games. The Speed of Light builds on the incredible response to NVA’s groundbreaking environmental artwork The Storr: Unfolding Landscape see past projects

The Speed of Light is a celebration of human potential through dramatically capturing the phenomenal energy of sporting effort within an animation of one of Scotland’s best known natural assets, Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.

The work aims to create iconic imagery of physical interaction with the landscape on an immense scale through the invention of a new human powered lighting system with a moving audience ascending a set route to the summit of the hill.

Athletes young and old, professional and amateur, on foot, in wheelchairs and on bikes, will be viewable from various points each lit in their own colour coding, moving at the differing speeds of their physical discipline across and around the hill, creating flowing animated light patterns.

Imagine red bursts of light as sprinters bring a central track to life, while on the night horizon there are green horizontal trails as marathon runners move, silhouetted above the Salisbury crags…

www.uva.co.uk
www.eif.co.uk
www.artiststakingthelead.org.uk/scotland

News
Archive News