Urban Pixels
Client: City of Tampa - Lights on Tampa
Location: Tampa, FL USA
Service: Design, Fabrication, Installation
Date Installed: 06/2022 (2-week event)
Features: Tampa Bay Times, Creative Loafing, TBT, and more..
Urban Pixels was developed for the 2015 Lights on Tampa, a free citywide light festival produced by the City of Tampa, Department of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and is a public/private partnership with the Public Art Alliance. The installation was about creating a toy to make a toy. The design came from the idea of creating a Lego-like element that people could build and create as a part of the light festival. It allowed the users to be more than a spectator and become a physical part of the light festival.
“It was amazing to see the work utilized by people of all ages working together to create their visions.”
The temporary installation was a series of tetrahedral pyramids that magnetically snapped together, allowing users to make different seating arrangements, creatures, forts, or whatever their imagination could come up with. The pyramids illuminated from within each contained led lights within them. Each pyramid was one of the primary colors, and when connected, they would change to the coordinating color using RFID sensors in each. So, if you snapped together yellow and blue they would turn green. The work sparked free-choice learning along with creativity and exploration into the park.
“I really enjoyed that I could build and create and not just watch.”
