Art Steelwork and Lighting

A collaborative project between Artist, Architects, Planners, Structural Engineers, Fabricators, Light Technicians, Property Developer, Building Contractor, and Developers for Warner Brothers. The site in the centre of Worcester had sensitive planning issues that the commercially driven development scheme needed to address. The public art proposal by Kate Maddison to integrate art steelwork and programmed coloured light projection into the 4 cinema end elevations was developed through close collaboration with the architects and accepted by planning and implemented in 2001.

"The cinema creates a vision of fantasy, adventure, and stories projected in light before the eyes. I wished to capture this at night while exposing by day the mechanics of film and motion picture." Inspired by the time lapse photography of Eadweard Muybridge, and the early magic lantern moving images, Kate Maddison took the image of a running human figure and expressed it in louvred panels of twisted steel bar.

The illusion of captured movement is enhanced by the motion of the passer-by, as the viewer moves, the image changes its balance of solid and void according to the angle it is viewed from.

To reinforce the concept of film, the artist also created a recognisable film strip to flank each side of the twisted bar panels, illustrating the same running figure. The 'strip of film' is cut from steel plate, against the scale of the building, the 6mm steel plate, supported on steel cables, looks as light and fragile as film.

To echo the experience of people inside the cinema watching films, the artist projected the shadow of the steel running figures from each of the four panels onto the outside of the four auditoria that support them. The shadow rays cast by the steel bars amplify the idea of a projected picture. The lamps run on a computer programmed sequence of changing colour with a motion that supports the running direction of the figure.