Site: Tampa Convention Center and adjacent locations
Artist: Chris Doyle
Concept: Transform the existing infrastructure into a giant magic lantern Ecstatic City (Tampa) is a project about animating a place, in this case, a district of the city that has as its hub, the Tampa Convention Center. Beginning at dusk, pedestrian areas of the city will be bathed in a gentle wash of spinning light. Chris Doyle says, “By taking a conventional, off-the-shelf object typically used in the disco and recontextualizing it in the city, I am attempting to amplify the sense of atmosphere, the mood of expectation and possibility that is so important to the life of a place and the experience of its people.”
Chris Doyle’s initial concept began with the notion of light — particularly the quality of natural light in Tampa when he first visited the area. Ecstatic City is a series of urban projects where the landscape of the city is transformed or animated.
For Tampa’s Ecstatic City, Doyle will make use of available existing street lighting experienced every day and transform the routine infrastructure into a giant magic lantern through attaching a rotating mirror ball to as many downtown streetlights as possible, concentrating in and around the area of the Convention Center. Part of this temporary project, located at the entrance to the Convention Center, will be left behind as a permanent addition to the city.
"I employ animation in much of what I make. In fact, my interest in animation goes beyond technique, extending to the idea of animus, an energizing spirit, that extends to places as well as things,” Doyle states. “Ecstatic City (Tampa) is a project about animating a place, in this case, a district of the city that has as its hub, the Tampa Convention Center.
“For Ecstatic City, I am deploying seventy rotating mirror balls throughout the area. Brackets supporting the balls, as well as integrated spotlights are attached to palm trees and light poles surrounding the Convention Center and the Riverwalk. Beginning at dusk, pedestrian areas of the city will be bathed in a gentle wash of spinning light. By taking a conventional, off-the-shelf object typically used in the disco and re-contextualizing it in the city, I am attempting to amplify the sense of atmosphere, the mood of expectation and possibility that is so important to the life of a place and the experience of its people."
