Chine Forest | Bournemouth, UK

An immersive public artwork featuring bespoke lighting design in collaboration with the artist Juliet Quintero and the sound designers Coda to Coda. Chine Forest is an audio-visual artist-led project and takes inspiration from Bournemouth’s famous chines and pines. The artwork is a digital representation of a natural environment situated in front of the Old Fire Station.

This highly technical project required a bespoke lighting design approach. The installation has a series of 17 bespoke lighting columns of varying heights, integrated with LED lighting and speakers. As a result, all components connect to a central control system that provides dynamic lighting control within each column.

It goes without saying, the concept was incredibly ambitious. Overall, there are 27 lighting scenes with 6 different lit portals. In addition with an Oral History aesthetic of white, set with 72 recorded sounds. The scenes change every 30 minutes and run from 8:00 am up to 10:30 pm. The programme of sound and lighting follows a circadian rhythm, fluctuating throughout the day. The scene arrangement also varies day to day, to avoid repetition and encourage repeat visits to the area. Moreover, every month of the year has an individual scene set which responds to sunrise and sunset times for that season.

Sound

The bespoke lighting design features each scene varying in brightness levels, opacity, groups of colours and set sounds. Together, the design represents scenes that evoke dawn, forest, heathland, river, sea, storm, and insects. The sounds were mixed live on site by Coda de Coda to create a surround sound experience and interest. There are underlying environmental soundtracks with sounds of wildlife recorded from that environment and weather reports such as shipping forecasts.

Reflecting back, the challenge for Michael Grubb Studio was creating the right light levels, utilising delicate, opaque light colours with subtle gradients and hues of light. It was an incredibly time-consuming task to create the colour gradients for the complex sequencing programme, but the finished result is striking.

 “This interactive artwork featured an incredibly complex and ambitious design. The lighting design from Michael Grubb Studio embodied the artist’s vision, developing a concept through creative workshops to demonstrate how elements of light and sound can reflect the diverse natural habitats that surround Bournemouth and the cultural heritage and diversity of the town itself.”

Iona Tovey, Lansdowne Programme Manager at Bournemouth Council

 

 “It’s great to celebrate this new space and artwork with partners who helped to make it possible, and those who will benefit most from the many improvements that we have made to the area – I look forward to seeing events brought forward and hosted here, as well as seeing the Chine Forest artwork capture people’s imagination.”

Chris Shephard, Director of Economic Development at BCP Council