Client: City of Madrid
Location: Madrid, Spain
Completion date: 2022
Artwork budget: $200,000
Project Team
design
Ben Busche
photography
ImagenSubliminal
Overview
IRIS is a site-specific temporary light installation commissioned by the city of Madrid for Plaza Canalejas, a perfectly round urban square with a diameter of 50 m in the city centre of Madrid.
At 9 m above the ground, the mesh of concentric red and blue light rope creates the illusion of a giant iris floating in space. The installation can be understood either as a close-up or vice versa, like the image of a distant galaxy. While the red and blue RGB ropes define the radial grooves, various vertically placed light bulbs and light spheres determine the typical freckles, wrinkles and other disturbances in the iris.
Goals
Iris is part of Madrid's Christmas lighting programme. Every year, the city invites artists from different fields, from architecture to fashion and graphic design, to create contemporary light installations.
Additional Information
The installation extends over 2000 m2. The red and blue LED light rope has a total length of 2 km. The two spheres with a diameter of 1m constantly change colour and are illuminated by 1,800 RGB LEDs each. A total of 102,600 LEDs are installed in all the lighting elements. The energy consumption of the entire installation is only 2.1kW/h.