FlyTower

So few men worked so hard building a lighting installation, the National’s Lyttelton Fly Tower. A strategically placed stationary security camera creates this footage, sequence edited to stop-motion animation below. The sky background is predominantly a featureless white space, which creates a composition of abstract forms using positive and negative space. It’s not a piece about the sky although subtly it is being an outdoor installation.

The building lights up firstly, not by the light installation, but the sun rising. The light rays disperse to the camera and diagonally travel over the facade. The brightness is so intense that momentarily the building appears to shapeshift. As the sky gradually darkens the building facade illuminates with fluorescent green neon light, first glimpse seen through the construction wrapping.

Night vision switches to black and white a bit like a violent Japanese film scene—this film is censored. Near work completion, whilst cleaning the building up, shifting low clouds, strong winds and rain on the camera lens add a stronger sense of emotion disrupting the silence. The lighting installation as seen from the surveillance footage is a little eerie. There's a sense of stillness as twilight fades to black. The illuminated green brilliance constantly intensifies. People in small groups gather around seen as indistinct silhouettes, some darting about… others stand motionless—caught like flies. The NT installation is aptly named the fly tower. Surveillance footage has the ability to elude our vision—delightfully triggering the imagination.

Animation by Guy Kendall and Dave Dargie. Installation by Ackroyd &Harvey.