2PIAN

A free outdoor light art festival in the Oslo Harbour Promenade, Fjord Oslo offers visitors an inclusive exploration of art and light. The theme of Fjord Oslo 2021 was Anthropocene - the concept of a geological epoch in which human activity is considered to have a powerful impact on the environment, climate, and ecology of the planet, leaving a long-term signature on the Earth.

The festival invited internationally renowned artists and the public to reflect upon the human impact on our planet to inspire imagination, new ideas, new images, and new perspectives. Lighting designer, Silje Thorsager Østby, Strategic Business Designer and Spatial Designer, Robert Iversen Bogard, and System Architect, Øyvind Knutsen achieved this with their Fjord Oslo installation, 2PIAN.

“The idea of topia is a place with characteristic features, neither positive nor negative. To be ‘topian’ is to behave as if the world we see as ideal already exists. By playing on this concept and creating a vague distinction between dystopia and utopia, the installation facilitates reflection on whether we as a species can actually call ourselves topian. Have we arrived there or are we on our way? The installation invites you to explore the relationship between the staged and spatial experience, land and water, as well as culture and nature in a mixed dystopian and utopian light experience for reflection on 2PIAN.” - Silje Thorsager Østby, Lighting Designer, Signify, Robert Iversen Bogard, Strategic Business Designer and Spatial Designer, Signify, and Øyvind Knutsen, System Architect, Signify.

The flexibility provided by Color Kinetics LED lighting solutions was ideal for creating the effects and light control needed to achieve the desired powerful and immersive experience.

2PIAN is divided into four spaces: a frame at the front of the installation, the seabed, two portals, and a statue outside City Hall Square. Color Kinetics ColorGraze MX4 Powercore, RGBW luminaires (56) (now specified with ColorGraze IntelliHue Powercore), in various sizes and beam angles created the lighting effect for the frame and portals. The frame fixtures were mounted next to one another near the ground and placed 5 cm (2 in) apart for the portals. The portal fixtures face one another 80 cm (31 in) from the illuminated surfaces. Burst Powercore, RGBW (2) with 10° and 20° beam angles and Blast Powercore, RGBW (2) with a 20° beam angle were mounted on the ground 5 m (16 ft) from the statue. The end-to-end lighting system was programmed with Color Kinetics Data Enabler pro (3) and controlled using Color Kinetics iPlayer 3 (3).

The result is a deeply inspirational and thought-provoking installation that invites reflection about our impact on the environment.