i Light Marina Bay

Coordinates: 1°17′04″N 103°51′21″E / 1.28444°N 103.85583°E / 1.28444; 103.85583

i Light Marina Bay
Official logo
Genre	Light art festival
Location(s)	Marina Bay
Country	Singapore
Inaugurated	2010
Organised by	Urban Redevelopment Authority
Website
http://www.marina-bay.sg/ilightmarinabay

i Light Marina Bay (Chinese: 照亮滨海湾) is Asia’s first and only sustainable light art festival, held in the Marina Bay district of Singapore.^[1] The festival is organised and presented by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).^[2]

i Light Marina Bay was first held in 2010 and the festival was officiated by Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean on 15 October 2010.^[3] Following its success, a second edition was held in 2012 and a third edition was held in 2014.^[4][5] The 2016 festival, In Praise of Shadows (named after an essay by Junichiro Tanizaki), will be held 7 - 24 March. The event now takes place annually.^[6]

The ‘i’ in the name alludes to the festival’s innovative content, the intelligent use of lighting as well as its international line-up of creative talent.^[7] It is also an invitation to everyone to get involved in this free outdoor celebration of creativity in a new community space.

i Light Marina Bay 2014: Light+HeART

The third edition of i Light Marina Bay, themed Light+HeART, returned to Marina Bay from 7 March to 30 March 2014.

In line with the theme, the festival showcased 28 innovative and environmentally sustainable light installations from around the world, transforming the Marina Bay waterfront into a magical space of light and color for the public to celebrate both public spaces and creativity. To promote an environmentally-responsible behavior for a sustainable future, participating artists have incorporated the use of recyclable materials and adopted energy-efficient lighting in the creation of their stunning light art installations.

Theme

The theme Light+HeART seeks to convey the message that “in the heart of the sustainability matters, is the matter of the heart”. Through this edition, the festival hopes to create unique, happy and heart-felt installations to delight the audience while driving home the sustainability message. This edition also saw a greater number of collaborations with the community and schools to form some of the art installations such as The Wishing! Tree and #WEHEARTLIGHT.

i Light Marina Bay 2014 attracted a total of 685,000 local and international visitors over the course of the three-week period.

Curatorial Team

The festival was curated by ONG&ONG’s:

• Ms Ong Swee Hong
• Mr Andrew Lee
• Mr Tai Lee Siang

Programme

While art and sustainability take centre stage, i Light Marina Bay 2014 also featured a full array of complementary events and activities, such as free guided tours, educational talks and seminars, sporting activities, bazaars and culinary treats, to create a dazzling, diverse and more enriching experience for all.

Participating Artists

Sustainability

A key objective of i Light Marina Bay was to advocate environmentally-responsible behaviour for a sustainable future, and to promote Marina Bay as a culturally vibrant and sustainable urban waterfront precinct. From encouraging artists to use recyclable materials as well as adopt energy-efficient lighting technology in the creation of their light art installations, to working with event and programme partners to more effectively manage resources and minimise waste, sustainability was promoted through all aspects of the festival.

Switch off, Turn up Campaign

i Light Marina Bay once again conducted the “Switch Off, Turn Up” Campaign, where stakeholders around Marina Bay were invited to switch off non-essential lighting and turn up air conditioning temperatures whenever possible during the festival period. The energy saving campaign was designed to offset the energy used by the light art installations and associated power use in Asia’s only sustainable light art festival which ran from 7 to 30 March.

52 buildings committed in this third edition to put in place measures to save energy during the festival period. Key developments involved include Marina Bay Sands, Marina Bay Financial Centre, and One Fullerton. Their participation signified their commitment to play a part in working towards a more sustainable future together. The campaign in 2014 achieved energy savings of 268,890 kWh.

Participating Buildings

2012 i Light Marina Bay: Light Meets Asia

The second edition of the light festival, Light Meets Asia, returned in 2012 and ran from 9 March 2012 to 1 April 2012.

In line with the theme, the festival showcased 31 innovative and environmentally sustainable light installations by multidisciplinary artists, with strong focus on works from Asian artists.^[8] 11 of the works were by Singaporeans and 12 were from regional artists.

This year’s festival attracted a total of 565,000 local and international visitors over the three-week period.^[9]

Theme

The theme for i Light Marina Bay 2012 was Lights Meet Asia. The list of installations featured a strong representation from new, emerging and well-known light art artists from countries across Asia including China, Philippines, Japan and Singapore.^[10]

Curatorial Team

The festival is curated by:

• Mary-Anne Kyriakou (Australian): Festival Director
• Charmaine Toh (Singaporean): Co-curator
• FARM (Singaporean): Co-curator^[11]

Programme

A series of fringe activities was arranged throughout the duration of the festival. These included free guided tours, performances, workshops and competitions.^[12]

Fringe activities comprised activities such as a weekly weekend Night carnival, with booths selling food and drinks as well as eco-friendly merchandise.^[13] The highlight of the Night Carnival was a light painting activity – which involved moving hand-held lights through the air to spell words or sketch symbols that was then captured by using long exposure on a camera.^[14]

There were also roving performances of Samba, Rata and Reggae beats by Junk Jam, LED light twirlers, towering LED stilt walkers as well as synchronised kite flying.^[15] A photography competition and Low Light Photography Workshop was also held.^[14][16] The festival also included an i Light Symposium where curators, artists and lighting designers had the opportunity to exchange ideas on light culture and architecture.^[17]

Participating Artists^[18]

2010 i Light Marina Bay: People, Place and Time

The inaugural edition of the festival was first held from 15 October to 7 November in 2010^[19] and was originally part of Marina Bay Invitations 2010, a series of events planned to promote Marina Bay as a vibrant venue and a destination for a brand new live-work-play experience.

It showcased about 25 dynamic light art installations and sculptures as well as interactive and performance-based art displays by 14 artists from Singapore and 20 international artists. The artworks were arranged in a line around the Marina Bay waterfront promenade to form a Light Walk.^[19]

The key highlight of the Light Walk was an installation that consisted of 29 large and beautiful light artworks of My Public Garden by French light art group, TILT, depicting a whimsical, fantasy garden which adorned The Promontory@Marina Bay.

The inaugural festival was a success and was attended by more than 433,000 visitors over the three-week duration, of which approximately 71,031 were international visitors.^[20]

Theme

Curated along the theme People, Place and Time, it served as the regional platform for the exchange of ideas and technology, artistic expression and public engagement through light art works with intelligent light usage and sustainable use of energy.^{[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]}

Curatorial Team

The festival is curated by:

• Mary-Anne Kyriakou (Australian): Festival Director
• Randy Chan (Singaporean): Co-curator
• Kelley Cheng (Singaporean): Co-curator

Programme

Fringe activities are the i Light Marina Bay Walking Tours, Smart Light Symposium: Light Art – the making of a movement, Guerilla Light Student Workshop, a photography competition and Passion Fun Around the Bay.

Participating Artists

• Human Tiles by OCUBO – Nuno Maya (Portugal) & Carole Purnelle (Belgium)
• Singapora-Flora by Warren Langley (Australia)
• Fire Flies by Francesco Mariotti (Switzerland)
• Hammerhaus by Kurt Laurenz Theinert & Hanfreich (Germany)
• Flight to Light by Mary-Anne Kyriakou (Australia). This artwork has been made available for preview from 12 August 2010 onwards at the Fullerton Heritage gallery^[28]
• My Public Garden by TILT (France)^[29]
• I C U Standt:punkt by Ingo K Bracke (Germany)
• Touch. Do Not Please The Work Of Art by Michael Lee (Singapore) & Cornelia Erdmann (Hong Kong)
• C/Ɔ by Angela Chong (Singapore)
• WattFish? by Dan Foreman, Cherry Wang & Zi Chang Lee (Meinhardt Light Studio Team, Singapore)
• Jellight by Pascal Petitjean & Aamer Taher (Singapore)^[29]
• the light within by Vellachi Ganesan (Singapore)
• Additive Reflection 1, 2, 3 by Jeppe Aagaard Andersen (Denmark)
• Wall Piercing by Ron Gilad, presented by Flos (Singapore)
• The Whirlpool by Martin Klaasen, Shane Richardson and Pascal Petitjean (Singapore & Australia)
• A Living! Project by Sun Yu Li, Allan Lim, Kenny Eng (Singapore)
• Flora Magica by Studio KYbra (Australia & Germany)
• The River Merchants, sculpture by Aw Tee Hong (Singapore) and lightwork by Studio KYbra (Australia & Germany)
• Animal Tree by Pitupong Chaowakul (Thailand)
• Digital Origami Tigers by Chris Bosse (Germany)
• Rainbow by Mark Hammer & Andre Keckes (Australia)
• A Blue Mirage in the City of Light by WY-TO Architects (Singapore)
• Lumenocity Singapore by Sasha Crocker & Andrew Daly (Australia)
• Positive Attracts by Edwin Cheong (Singapore)
• Doves that Cry by Mary-Anne Kyriakou & Joe Snell (Australia)
• All of us by Zymryte Hoxhaj (Germany)

Sustainability

Artists that participated in i Light Marina Bay 2012’s light show were selected for the use of energy-efficient LED lights and/or the incorporation of sustainable, recycle and/or re-usable materials into their light artworks. Some of these artworks leveraged on alternative sources of energy such as solar, kinetic or wind in order to generate energy for the light installations.^[30][31]

Professional sustainability consultants were also engaged to work with the event partners, artists, contractors and suppliers to ensure that suitable sustainable practices are incorporated to reduce energy use.^[32] Through the use of energy-efficient lighting and alternative sustainable energy sources, the total energy usage for all the installations in the 2012 i Light Marina Bay festival was less than 7,000 kWh.^[33]

The festival also participated in Earth Hour on 31 March 2012 and all 31 featured artworks were switched off for an hour.^[34]

Switch Off, Turn Up Campaign

The Switch Off, Turn Up campaign – an energy efficiency initiative – was first held in 2010 in line with the i Light Marina Bay 2010 festival.^[35] This campaign called for participating properties to make a conscious effort to switch off all non-essential indoor/outdoor lighting and office equipment and turn up air-conditioning temperatures to 24 to 25°C.^[35]

The 2010 campaign managed to attract 16 properties and had collective savings of more than 41,000 kWh of electricity over the three-week event period.^[35]

In 2012, the initiative successfully extended its reach well beyond the Marina Bay precinct, with buildings across the island pledging their support.^[36] The campaign saved more than 200,000 kWh, four times the energy saved in 2010.^[35] This equates to 100 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, enough to generate electricity for 762 4-bedroom HDB flats for three-weeks.^[35][37]

47 properties that participated in this year’s Switch Off, Turn Up campaign, up from 16 properties in 2010:^[36]

1. 16 Collyer Quay
2. 71 Robinson Road
3. ArtScience Museum
4. Ascott Raffles Place Singapore
5. Asia Square
6. Central Mall Office Conservations
7. Central Mall Office Towers
8. Cideco Industrial Complex
9. City House
10. City Industrial Building
11. City Square Mall
12. Conrad Centennial Singapore
13. F1 Pit Building
14. Fuji Xerox Towers
15. HSBC Building
16. King’s Centre
17. Manulife Centre
18. Marina Barrage
19. Marina Bay Financial Centre
20. Marina Bay Link Mall
21. Marina Bay Sands
22. Marina Mandarin Hotel
23. Marina South Pier
24. Maybank Tower
25. New Tech Park
26. Ocean Financial Centre
27. One Fullerton
28. One Marina Boulevard
29. One Raffles Place
30. One Raffles Quay
31. OUE Bayfront
32. Palais Renaissance
33. Pan Pacific Singapore
34. Pantech Business Hub
35. Pico Creative Centre
36. Republic Plaza
37. Singapore Flyer
38. Straits Trading Building
39. Tagore 23
40. Tampines Concourse
41. Tampines Grande
42. The Esplanade
43. The Fullerton Bay Hotel
44. The Fullerton Hotel
45. The URA Centre
46. Tung Centre
47. Wisma Atria

References