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Have you ever considered the possibility of graffiti without vandalism? There is an impressive variety of legal urban street art, from light art to reverse graffiti. There are also eco-friendly leave-no-trace forms of illegal urban expression, such as urban exploration or guerilla gardening. Architectural light graffiti, or projection bombing, falls somewhere curiously in between.
The set up is simple: a programmed sequence (created in realtime or ahead of time) is fed through a high-powered digital projector. The Graffiti Research Lab has developed a sped-up video depicting the setup and projection resulting in the patterns above, as well as other creative and interactive displays. More information on how to develop these on your own can be found on Instructables.
If you want to try projecting light graffiti on a smaller scale, there are some fairly amazing ways to modify everyday items to this purpose. For example, with a little work, an ordinary disposable camera can be turned into a functional projector. This makeshift portable device can project image or text art onto urban surfaces.
If you’re not sure about creating your own urban light graffiti, you can always interact with the work of someone else. The above Light Brix are touch sensitive. Passers by can create their own patterns on Light Brix walls. Know of other creative urban light art (such as light grenades)? Feel free to share links, thoughts, or responses below!
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23 Comments
September 7th, 2007 at 2:40 am
Cool - no need to scale walls or clamber over rooftops to place your message in a high visibility spot anymore!
September 7th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I love this blog.
Keep it up
Dave
September 7th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Neat stuff. light brix r kool
September 7th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
You guys never fail to impress.
September 8th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Thanks! Glad you all enjoyed it. The tutorial on how to ‘make your own’ was clicked thousands of times, so hopefully we’ll all see some more light and color in the streets soon ;)
September 8th, 2007 at 11:43 am
In 1985 I saw Krzysztof Wodiczko project a swastika onto South Africa House in London, himself positioned in the public space of Trafalgar Square. This was while Nelson Mandela was still a prisoner of course.
http://citizen.nfb.ca/onf/info.....p;hlp=true
September 9th, 2007 at 1:33 am
that is amazing, I’ve never seen anything like that. maybe I have, but I’d just assume that it was all planned and allowed..that’s amazing.
September 9th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Two related projects:
“Beamvertisin”: Skateboarding on walls..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgqZMgRijXo
Monet au pixels, in Rouen, France:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/t.....515710036/
In this project Monet’s paintings of the cathedral of Rouen were projected ON that same cathedral, which made it look like a painting. Really amazing!
September 9th, 2007 at 5:56 am
Oops, wrong link:
Monet from pixels:
http://www.rouentourisme.com/d.....p;file=330
September 9th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Wow those are some great images and an excellent video. Thanks for adding them into the mix - highly relevant!
December 18th, 2007 at 3:23 am
that’s great. you inspired us to do that light graffiti animation.
it takes 60 photos and 2 days to make that spiderwalk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR0HE5vBJy0
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