do something different in the middle of the night...

We can now announce a few more details about exactly what we will be doing in the middle of the night - more specifically, over the night of 30th October - 31st October...

We are producing this:

This, is to be our sea bound installation for the wonderful White Night Brighton 2010 - 'mini murmuration' and this is what is about.

Responding to the 2010 theme of ‘Illumination’ Claire Potter Design have been commissioned to produce an innovative light installation which will play homage to two icons of the city – the crumbling West Pier and the starlings which call it home.

Over recent years, the West Pier has developed from a skeleton into a living performance, when every night, thousands of starlings mass and whirl in the skies above the structure - known as a murmuration - creating a beautiful dance before they settle to roost. Whilst this dance is beautiful to watch, and has become as iconic as the West Pier itself, many do not realise how important this roosting site is, and how threatened the starlings actually are.

One of the four specially commissioned pieces for White Night Brighton 2010, ‘mini murmuration’ is a light based installation which takes this ‘performance’ as inspiration, and aims to educate viewers as to the threatened status of the birds and the importance of the site.

A sea-based artwork will be created next to the West Pier itself, with around a hundred Mathmos ‘Windlights’ - miniature wind turbine LEDs – glowing and swaying above an old timber boat, creating a fluctuating shape reminiscent of the murmurations of the starlings.

Red LEDs have been chosen to highlight the Red Listed status of the starlings on the RSPB Species of Conservation Concern list, whilst the number of LEDs used (approximately 80 – 100) will highlight the massive numerical decline of the birds. Only a small ‘cloud’ of LED starlings will sway next to the Pier.

We will of course be posting more info on the development of the piece as it is made, but if you want to do something different in the middle of the night, stick the 30th Oct in your diary, and come and say hello.