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Nokia lights up Regent Street

Eliza 21/11/07, 14:17

regent-street-blue-and-pink-lights.jpg

Christmas is coming, in case you hadn’t noticed. To alert us to this, over the last few weeks Christmas lights have been switched on all over London, filling the streets with gaudy displays. Except on Regent Street that is, which this year, thanks to a collaboration between Nokia and Wieden + Kennedy ad agency, has taken a surprisingly elegant approach.

Nokia has sponsored the Regent Street lights as part of a campaign to advertise the imminent arrival of its flagship London store, which arrives at 240 Regent Street in January. They are designed by United Visual Artists, no strangers to CR, who have worked with the P2 Group to create the 14 space-age-looking “light clusters” that make a pleasant break from the Disney-themed displays that normally grace London’s busiest shopping streets at Christmas time.

regent-street-bright-pink-lights.jpg

It’s not just about them looking pretty, either - the lights are interactive, designed to react to the movement of people walking beneath them via motion cameras, and changing formation depending upon the amount of pedestrians in the street. In addition, they will respond to environmental factors such as wind speed, weather and sunlight levels. And if this weren’t enough, Nokia and Wieden + Kennedy have also considered the environmental impact of the displays, using low energy LED cores and making them 100% recyclable.

The lights can be viewed on Regent Street until January 6.

Posted in Art

Comments(7 comments)

Cool, though next year they should try a collaboration between W+K and the Church of England…

“Baby Jesus – Connecting People”

Posted by Ed Wright on 21/11/07, 4:13 pm

These look great. They remind me of the Ambient Orb, which do very similar things. Can I text my Xmas list to Santa, via one of them?

Posted by Gary on 21/11/07, 4:20 pm

Great to see christmas lights minus the disney film content and z list celebrity to start off the proceedings. Christmas should be about people coming together, which the concept of these lights communicates excellently. Well done Wieden’s and well done Nokia!

Posted by Sarah on 21/11/07, 5:02 pm

They look great.. so much better than the Disney effort on Oxford Street.

Posted by streak on 22/11/07, 3:28 pm

What’s great is that the lights are changing with the crowd thanks to motion sensors.

Posted by Christmas London on 22/11/07, 4:04 pm

An interactive project involving floating lights created by mobile phone electromagnetic feedback was created a few years back, this could have been developed into a truly fantastic collaboration for nokia. It works like this…

Helium balloons have mobiles placed in them and are released into the sky.

People at street-level “call” into the cloud (flying between 10 - 100m above them) they are able to listen to distant natural electromagnetic sounds of the sky (including whistlers and spherics).

“Calling” the ballon/light changes the local hertzian causing feedback within the sensor network creating ripples of light reminiscent of rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning - or Christmas celebrations!

It’s a magical display of sound and light that engages by “connecting people”.
(and makes lots of money for nokia…probably?!)

Link has photos and video of Skyear. http://www.haque.co.uk/skyear.php

Creative projects need not only creative research but an interest in ’seeing’, an interest/knowlege of many subjects… has the creative industry become internalised?

Posted by paul jakulis on 23/11/07, 2:47 am

Agreed. I like the Nokia lights too. The Disney lights are a sad abomination. The lights on South Molton St are worth a look, too.

Posted by strangerpixel on 14/12/07, 4:27 pm

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