reindeer
A herd of glowing reindeer ran above patrons' heads as part of the Christmas lights display at The Oast House, a popular pub and restaurant on Spinningfields, Manchester.
As well as having strong visual impact, the installation continued our exploration of interactive public realm by allowing visitors to use a web app on their mobile phone to interact with the display, triggering an animation and changing the colour of the reindeer.
But not only that, once they'd chosen a colour, a camera took a photo of the visitor with the work and the colour they'd chosen, turned it into a Christmas card and sent it back to their handset. A momento that they could keep and share on social media.
This was a complex project, successfully executed over a short timeframe. It involved specialist input from manufacturers, structural engineers, programmers and electronic designers. Most importantly, people really enjoyed it! The work was surrounded by people taking photos every time we stopped by...
The Reindeer are planning to return to Spinningfields for Christmas 2015
The work was commissioned by The Christmas Decorators Manchester
christmasdecoratorsmanchester.co.uk
The work was delivered in partnership with 24 Design
24design.co.uk
Structural design and assessment by Renaissance
www.renaissance-ltd.com
Some photos by Sarah Ricketts.