Client: Boston Properties, Sales Force

Overview

Salesforce Tower’s six-story screen is curated by artist/engineer Jim Campbell. In 2023/24, Jim invited the Lightbirds to fly in celebration of the spring migration of over 200 species of birds in San Francisco, CA. The Lightbirds soared 1000′ over the Bay Area with 80′ wingspans, often in pairs or flocks. The public response was tremendous, with comments that seeing them uplifted daily hardships.

Goals

As a long-time open-water swimmer, Lahaie takes inspiration from the seabirds she sees in San Francisco Bay as context for a huge-scale Lightbird Migration on the Salesforce Tower. These birds of light were born out of Lahaie's concern for the effects of climate change on seabird populations: rising water temperatures are leading to cascading impacts on marine ecosystems, with a high frequency of mass seabird mortality. The ethereal Lightbirds bring attention to the effects of rising temperatures on seabirds. Since the 1970s, the bird population has declined by one billion nationally. Lahaie's celebration of architectural scale birds in flight is an elegy for those we've lost and provides solace for us who remain.

Process

Salesforce Tower engineer, Jim Campbell provided our team with visualization software to test our reels in preparation for the low-resolution tower screen. We had three in-person tests to upload our Lightbird optimal visual effect with the Tower technology, and the first two tests were illegible. Over that time, we edited scale, contrast, speed, color, and frame position for a contextually and technically successful project. Hanh Nguyen of Running Reel Films is the videographer/editor

Additional Information

In 2023, the Lightbird Migration was featured on San Francisco's KPIX CBS live special and won the CODAworx top 20 San Francisco Public Art projects. It can currently be seen this summer from dusk to midnight at the diRosa Center for Contemporary Art building in Napa, CA.