Ponce City Market is about to be lit
<i>Cyclique</i>, an immersive light and audio show featuring 256 helium balloons with LED lights, touches down this Friday
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When the sun dips this Friday, an immersive light and audio show at Ponce City Market will attempt to leave everyone’s inner child aglow. Featuring 256 helium balloons with LED lights placed inside each, Cyclique is making its stateside debut courtesy of the Grenoble, France-based digital arts company Collectif Coin.
The public art installation, set to begin at sundown and repeat throughout the evening, covers 700 square meters. The balloons are choreographed to illuminate in sync with the soundtrack, creating an immersive audio-reactive light show that carries the fitting theme Child Hood.
The inspiration for Child Hood came from Collectif Coin’s set and concept designer Maxime Houot. ”I like to work on a collection of simple things,” he says in a press statement about the evening, which is being developed and produced by Atlanta-based integrated design and marketing organization MA! to launch this year’s biennial MINI TAKES THE STATES nationwide road rally. “Each one makes something simple, not very interesting by itself. But something more emerges when you put them all together. It can be simple movements of dozen of dancers, CCTV cameras, lights, or anything.”
Combining light and sound, in particular, is part of her aesthetic and an attempt to stimulate audiences on multiple levels. ”I like to look for some kind of synesthetic approach to these mediums,” Houot says. “Again, as for the accumulation, in my work, one alone is not enough but the combination of the two makes something more. More dynamic. More memorable.”
Though the performative installation has shone in foreign locales from Paris to Bucharest, Atlanta’s showing marks its U.S. premiere. And as far as the crowd’s reaction at PCM, Houot is keeping his expectations open. “Each time is different. Sometimes, grownups become little children, and are so happy when we gave them balloons,” she says. “Sometimes, groups of people stay hours around the installation, chilling, immersing themselves in the experience of light and sound. I can’t wait to see Atlanta’s reactions for this event.”