Aurora Palo Alto, An Interactive Light Sculpture by Charles Gadeken

Artist Charles Gadeken has created “Aurora Palo Alto,” an interactive light sculpture of a tree that will be displayed for a year in front of City Hall in Palo Alto, California. According to the Aurora Palo Alto page, there will be an “interactive mobile app will allow the public to play with the tree, modifying the color and pattern of 40,000 LED lights that bring the tree to life and making it an ever-changing, collaborative work of public art.”

Aurora is an opalescent willow with hand-beaten copper leaves that chime in the wind. At night, the tree comes alive with light, rotating through the spectrum of colors and providing spectacular illumination. It is a fairy tree that re-ignites our childhood imaginations, full of wonder and endless possibility.