Last week, an enormous rubber duck bravely traversed the choppy waters of London’s River Thames, in a stunt that turned out to be orchestrated by online gambling site Jackpotjoy.
The half-ton waterfowl aimed to reverse the ‘happiness recession’, the brand has said, presumably helping us all to fritter our money away in that happy little pursuit of online gambling.
If one wasn’t enough, another water-based spectacle looks to attempt to up the ante next week, in the form of a 300-strong flotilla of illuminated floating paper boats.
The fleet was commissioned by the Canary Wharf Group’s public art programme and will sail the waters around the east London financial hub, displaying colour-changing, pattern-shifting designs that can be altered by those watching them.
By connecting a mobile phone to the Voyage Wi-Fi network, viewers can modify the colours and patterns of the boats through an online tool.
The piece, entitled Voyage, was created by artistic duo Aether & Hemera, a partnership between architect Claudio Benghi and lighting artist Gloria Ronchi.
Aiming to create an aquatic light show, the piece will be this year’s annual Winter Lights installation, put on each year by CWG ‘to enliven the dark evenings’, it says.
Each day the boats will be illuminated from just before dusk until 2 am, and organisers say it aims to ‘provoke memories, explore aesthetic interaction, evoke memories of childhood and elicit feelings of connective human experiences from their audience.’
