A COSMIC project to recreate the constellations of the night sky on the streets of Oxford has won a £30,000 prize.
Star Light, Star Bright promises to map the night sky onto the city streets via pressure-sensitive lights embedded in the ground.
Placed in clusters across the city, the lights will encourage people to gather together to map constellations such as Ursa Major, Aries and Cassiopeia.
Each 'star' will shine brighter as more are activated, until the final star cues 'super bright' beams of light – bathing the people beneath in a constellation of stars.
The interactive installation, dreamt up by the award-winning Guerilla Dance Project, was yesterday announced as the winner of the first ever Smart Oxford Playable City Commission.
This competition, run by arts funder Watershed and the Smart Oxford city promotion network, received 82 applications from artists, designers, architects, technologists and creative practitioners from 28 countries around the world who had proposed new and distinctive ideas to respond to the theme 'shared city'.
Star Light, Star Bright is now due to be unrolled across Oxford this winter.
Laura Kriefman, founder of Guerilla Dance Project, said: "We are so excited that Guerilla Dance Project have been awarded the Smart Oxford Playable City Commission.
"Having been actively involved in the Playable City movement for years, it is great to be able to create a city-wide piece in the UK.
"Guerilla Dance Project can't wait to make the stars shine bright, for all the citizens of the beautiful city of Oxford."
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