Forest Gets LED ‘Light Sculpture’

While the LED Panel Store is definitely the best place to get an LED panel suspension kit for installing a new lighting system in your home or business, installing LEDs in a forest is a whole different question. Yet, in the Forest of Dean, there’s a new interactive masterpiece, which uses LED lighting at its core.

According to the BBC, artist Andrea Rose has created the ‘sculpture’ from LED lights that are triggered by motion sensors when a visitor to the forest is nearby. The sculpture, which is called ‘Sentient Forest’, will be on show for a year.

The inspiration for the project is the idea of mycelium – a theory that a forest is connected by a communication network that shares nutrients and ‘information’ between trees, plants and fungi.

“I imagined that instead of seeking out an artwork on the forest trail, the artwork would ‘sense’ you” said Andrea of her creation using interconnected, individually programmed LEDS light. “[We] have produced a microcontroller-driven lighting system which mimics underground mycelial networks and, when triggered, communicates the presence of passing walkers to nearby trees.”

The sculpture works on the idea that rather than you seeking out the work, the work reveals itself to you by activating by motion sensors when you’re near.

LED lightbulbs are a popular material for modern art – take a look at this stunning immersive masterpiece for example by Yayoi Kusama called the Infinity Room. Using mirrored glass and hundreds of LED bulbs, the artists has created the illusion of a never-ending space, which has been showcased at the likes of the Tate Modern.