Jellyfish Bloom – Canberra 2018

They flashed when they sensed you coming. Jellyfish Bloom was a set of giant illuminated jellyfish, about four metres high, that lit up in response to human presence – six of them, five inside the Canberra Centre and one in the Parliamentary Zone, deployed for the Enlighten Festival in 2018.

The interactivity was the whole design. A static light sculpture is scenery; one that reacts to a person walking past turns the audience into the thing that makes it work, which in a shopping centre concourse produces exactly the effect intended – people stopping, waving, coming back with children. They were built by Ample Projects, a Sydney public-art firm, with custom electronics and interactive lighting hardware rather than off-the-shelf fittings.