Streetlight is a group pressure project with James Davis and Sebastian Irrgang which was further developed. Below is the brief.

The scenario that we came up with was as follows:

"Transform the mundane process of scanning into a city-wide performance using street lights. data from scanners is intercepted and rebroadcast with each street light as a pixel. a monochrome version of the image sweeps across the city for the time it takes to scan."

After investigating various methods of remote control we discovered that many street lights in London are now light activated. Previously most were on a timer.

Near Sebastian's house we discovered an easily hackable streetlight with just such a light sensitive receptor.

After rejecting a design which involved hoods and solar powered LEDs (see below) we decided to experiment with just a simple torch to see how this would affect the light. Please see video below for illustration.

If you look carefully at the video above you can see the delay in the light sensitive circuit, about three seconds.

We wanted to make our next prototype as portable as possible, and as invisible as possible. With help from Adrian Ashley I constructed a remote control laser that would fulfil both aims.


The next step was to deploy the device on a street level. The opening of a local gallery (Makin and Rubert Gallery) provided the perfect opportunity.