Commissioned and presented by Birmingham Hippodrome Creative, British-Chinese artist Aowen Jin's new outdoor artwork Midlight invites people to create their own light displays. Through cutting-edge digital technology and social media interaction, the colours can be changed both with sound (music, singing, clapping etc) and via Twitter.
Midlight features thousands of LED lights with 90,000 colour variations which adjust so that no two experiences with the artwork are ever the same. The project is the first of its kind to include the participation of Birmingham's local Chinese community who live and work around the Hippodrome in the Southside district.
Aowen explained, "Working with the Hippodrome Creative team on this project has been a real pleasure. As an artist it's so important to be able to create an original artwork that pushes boundaries and breaks new ground. Many organisations struggle with this, but the visionary team at the Hippodrome have been so supportive - they really embraced the concept and their help has been invaluable to getting it off the ground. Their devotion to engaging with the local community and bringing art to the city is admirable, and really does make Birmingham stronger as a whole."
Graham Callister, Birmingham Hippodrome's creative programme director added, "Birmingham is now a super-diverse, international destination for culture that boasts an amazing array of artistic and creative talent. We want our creative programme to really engage with this agenda and offer something different for both our existing and new audiences. New commissions such as Midlight do exactly that."
Viewing Midlight is free to the public. It can be seen at St. Phillips Cathedral Gardens (Colmore Row) on Wednesday 16 December from 4pm - 7pm, and also in Millennium Point on Friday 18 December from 1pm - 5.30pm.
Visitors are encouraged to tweet the name of any colour to @himidlight and the installation will change colour. Midlight is supported by Arts Council England, Southside BID, Birmingham City Council, Chicmi, Arcadian and Red Gate.
(Jim Evans)
