In a bid to capture the age-old struggle between humanity and nature, interactive installation studio Iregular has created an experience in Vienna that gives participants control of lighting itself. Well, the lightning is made from LEDs, but the large-scale screen makes BLITZFÄNGER a thunderous experience indeed. Iregular founder Daniel Iregui calls the project “an homage to the power of nature and our attempt to control it,” putting the experience of rerouting massive electrical charges in the hands of up to nine people at a time. They manipulate crackling red, blue, and green bolts of electricity with 9.8-foot-long “lightning rods”—a classic symbol of human ingenuity kicking nature in the butt.
BLITZFÄNGER, which loosely translates to “lightning catcher,” was produced by the Media Architecture Institute and designed by Iregular for the Human Futures program of artistic exchange between Europe and Canada, curated by Gernot Tscherteu under a theme of “living spaces.” Iregular’s previous work, which includes digital wormholes and explorable cityscapes, often uses technology to bring people, and this one is no different. Iregui continues, “BLITZFÄNGER took place at the entrance of a new residential complex outside of Vienna in between the train and the buildings and was designed to disrupt the routine of the inhabitants that just go in and out of the complex allowing them to get to know, or at least see the people they live around.”
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See BLITZFÄNGER in action in the images and video below.
See more of Iregular’s work on their website. The full team is listed below:
Created by Iregular; Concept, graphic and sound design: Daniel Iregui; Technical Direction: François Loubert-Hudon; Technical Assistance: Juan Carvajal; Produced by: Media Architecture Institute; Powered by: X-Agora; Curated by: Gernot Tscherteu
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