Midland Redevelopment - MRA Lights
Two spectacular new Midland landmarks, tall towers that blaze with colour at night, are the latest installations in the Midland Redevelopment Authority’s (MRA) public art program.
Located near the 105-year-old heritage buildings at The Workshops, the historic heart of the urban renewal area, the towers – 18m and 6m tall - and other lighting features are the works of acclaimed Sydney artist Warren Langley.
The towers use rusting steel, polycarbonate diffuser and light-emitting diodes. The smaller works use similar illumination technology to draw attention to architectural elements like a gabled roof, steel beam and circular windows.
For Mr Langley, whose works include light and landscape installations in New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, Scotland, Canada and the United States, the most memorable images of his first visit to the Workshops were of rust.
“The vast amounts of discarded, rusting steel and the overall rusty colours of the huge brick buildings stayed with me,” he said. “I wanted to reference this pervasive element of the site in the works.
“The works also had to function as marker points or site references, hence the introduction of colour into the pervasive rusted surfaces of the towers. The coloured light drawings embedded in the towers reference the busyness and vitality of the once active site.
“The small light interactions at other points around the site provide small memories of the larger towers.”
Mr Langley said that while the towers were visible from a considerable distance, they mutated into something different up close because of the almost pixilated pattern of the laser-cut steel surface.
“We constructed a 4m-high section in my studio, so we knew exactly what we would get and all experimentation could take place before installation” he said. “While there were some nail-biting moments as the huge 18m tower was lifted into position,
everything went extremely smoothly - due largely to the competence of my team, studio manager Trent Baker, local Perth steel wizard Mick Bowra and Partridge Partners.
“They managed the assembly and installation with military precision.”
Mr Langley said that despite the planning and the smaller studio version, he was still not prepared for the scale and intensity of the final result.
“On public art projects of this scale you nibble away at it over time and then suddenly …… there it is,” he said. “It’s a great feeling.”