Giant outdoor projections showing photographs of Leicester people on city centre cycle routes will be part of the official launch of Phoenix Square film and digital media centre in Leicester’s emerging cultural quarter on 19 November.
Phoenix Square is the creation of a partnership project between Blueprint, Phoenix, and Leicester City Council in collaboration with De Montfort University (DMU) and is an example of 21st century sustainable building design, coupled with leading-edge architectural quality.
It contains 63 new homes, seven office studios, 22 managed workspace units and will be home to the new Phoenix independent arts cinema and digital gallery and the Cube which will showcase creative applications of new and emerging technologies by DMU’s Institute of Creative Technologies (IOCT).
DMU’s Professor of Digital Creativity, Martin Rieser, who works jointly with the IOCT and the University’s Faculty of Art and Design, has created three innovative outdoor projections for the public launch event of Phoenix Square representing his cycling research project Songlines.
The project is based on developing cyclist information on Leicester (including cycle routes, road conditions and podcast information on surroundings) via a mobile-accessible online wiki.
Songlines is a joint initiative between Leicester City Council Transport Department and De Montfort University Transport Group, researching the potential for self-developing cyclist information on Leicester via a mobile accessible online wiki.
For the opening of Phoenix Square, Songlines will be presented through projections on to the side of the building. This comprises three elements:
1. Portraits of people met on various city centre cycling routes. These will gradually fade into each other to create a series of semi-transparent layers;
2. Abstract video films of cycle journeys through the city, visualised as colourful streaming moving images of the passing roadside;
3. A gradually changing map of GPS traces of the cycle journeys around Leicester.
Professor Rieser said: “The portraits are projected on the full height of the side of the building and gradually fade into each other to create a series of semi-transparent layers as a “palimsest” portrait of the city. These are full‐figure portraits of people photographed at random in the streets of Leicester city centre.
“Six projectors are also to be used to project abstract video films of cycle journeys on the front of Phoenix square through the city, visualized as colourful streaming moving images of the passing roadside.
“A single projector will also creates a gradually augmenting map of GPS traces of the journeys taken by cyclists around the city.”
