Submerged in an Ocean of Light

However, that’s exactly what digital designers Squidsoup hope to achieve with their Submergence installation, which is housed in Bristol’s new Eye development.

The piece is an interactive large-scale light installation, housed in a big black cube.

Within the cube, 8,064 individual points of suspended light create a continually shifting wave of colour and illumination, which reacts to the movements of the people exploring it.

The light movements are choreographed into four five-minute sections taking 20 minutes to unfold, as the intensity of the lights gradually build to a final climax.

Submergence  was originally shown at the Geneva Mapping Festival and in Oslo, and this will be its UK debut before it travels to Russia’s St Petersburg.

The piece was created as part of Squidsoup’s Ocean of Light research project, which looks at the ‘immersive possibilities of visual systems that occupy physical 3D space’, according to the group.

Aiming to ‘create feelings of presence and movement within physical space’, the ‘ocean’ of lights looks to immerse the viewer within another reality of digital pixels, light lanterns and movement.

Squidsoup says, ‘The experience is akin to walking through an abstract virtual environment, where pixels on a screen are replaced by thousands of points of light floating in space. These points of light create evocations and atmospheres, presence.’

Submergence will be in place until 12 October at The Eye ground floor, Glass Wharf, Bristol BS2