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Illuminate Bath: A bi-annual festival of light projections, installations, performances, workshops (2010 / 2012)

The use of light as a form of data that can be manipulated is a theme that runs through much of Head’s research practice. Illumination itself conveys a dual meaning: to reveal that which is often hidden and to improve understanding.

Both of these senses of the meaning emerge in ‘Illuminate Bath’, a projection, digital art and moving image festival, of which Head is the Creative Director. With its emphasis on public engagement and interactivity, ‘Illuminate Bath’ reveals the city’s familiar architecture in a new light (literally), transforming it into a canvas, a presenting a new perspective on Heritage to the general public.

The first Illuminate Bath festival in 2010 achieved audience figures of 40,000 over two weeks, and with a budget of £100,000 the 2012 festival achieved an audience of 35,000 over 4 nights, and was featured in news stories around the world. A film of the 2012 festival was featured in the 2012 Circle of Light Festival in Moscow.

Head’s research in this arena has extended beyond the Festival, creating several architectural projected artworks including ‘Jackie’ (June 2012) a playful real-time projected animated Union Jack, and Digitrope (March 2013) and interactive participatory projected zoetrope. Following his paper, ‘Exploring the issues of digital outdoor architectural projections’ (July 2012), presented at Electronic Visualisation and Arts London 2012 conference, Head was invited to be the digital artist on the project ‘You, Me and Everyone in Portsmouth’ that features 2000 stories from people in Portsmouth, filtered by authors. Head was responsible for visualising the stories on Portsmouth Guildhall for a two-night projection, a £55K project, funded by Arts Council England and Portsmouth City Council (25th-26th October 2013).