Zenith 1999
Millennium Square, Bristol
Installed in 1999 and officially unveiled in July 2000
52 omni-directional, computer-controlled aircraft landing lights set into the paving of Millennium Square in the configuration of an analemma.
Approximate length 50m
Technical collaboration and lighting design: Chris Baldwin of ACT Consultants, Madingley, Cambridge.
Zenith recreates the elongated ‘figure of eight’ shape of an analemma – the line traced by the sun recorded at noon over the course of a year, as used in the past by navigators, explorers and astronomers. The lights are programmed to trace a constantly changing orbital path across the square.
‘Zenith’s visual formation and its performance as a light work relate to the source image of the analemma on a poetic level, as an analogue rather than a literal, mechanical model, allowing broader associations of astronomy, observation, movement, time and dynamics to come to mind’. (David Ward)
Commissioned by At-Bristol (now renamed ‘We The Curious’) as part of a major urban regeneration project on Bristol’s Harbourside, with funding from the National Lottery via the Millennium Commission. Zenith was installed in 1999 and officially unveiled in July 2000, when Millennium Square was opened by HRH The Prince of Wales.
