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Robe lights up Sentech Tower for Brixton Light Festival

The 2023 Brixton Light Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, delivered its third - and largest to date - event filled with the magic, mystery and imagination evoked by light. It started during the Covid lockdowns as a community-led and driven art-based lighting experience to unite the neighbourhood of Brixton. The goal is to celebrate the spirit and importance of community, and the power of art and empathy.

Sound designer and Brixton resident Fried Wilsenach from Working Dog helped implement several lighting installations this year, including one illuminating the Sentech Tower, an iconic landmark that dominates the Brixton skyline and that of the surrounding Auckland Park suburb. The Tower is part of SABC’s (South African Broadcasting Corporation) broadcasting HQ which is also located there.

Wilsenach in turn asked lighting designer Oliver Hauser to join the team and provide ideas for the Tower illuminations. To transform the 237-metre-high Sentech into a beacon of light that was visible from all over the city, Hauser utilised Robe fixtures - two Tarrantulas, two Esprites, a Forte and a MegaPointe - supplied to the event by DWR as part of their sponsorship package.

The fixtures were positioned on top of a garage in Wilsenach’s garden approximately 240 metres away with a clean shot to the target. The West side of the tower - the one facing the Brixton community - was lit up and became a signature symbol of the Light Festival.

Hauser used the two pairs of lights - Tarrantulas and Esprites - to highlight the Tower’s reinforced concrete mast section and “lollipop”, a cantilevered observation deck which has been closed to the public since 1982. The Tarrantulas were used for colouring the mast which, being concrete and pale grey, took the light very well. It was divided into two areas - top and bottom - each lit with one Tarantula.

The Forte and the two Esprites then worked as overlaid patterning and texturing on the mast. The two Esprites were also assigned to the top/bottom sections, while the Forte - effectively the third layer of lighting - covered the whole 237 metres. Hauser combined the Forte and Esprite animation wheels and rotating gobos in this context.

The MegaPointe was used for additional pin-spotting and colouring on the lollipop, and on the “sock” as Hauser and his crew dubbed the antennae on the very top of the Tower. They programmed around 24 lighting looks and cues in the GrandMA Dot2 console, swapping between different combinations of the Robe fixtures.

Other landmarks lit up as part of the Light Festival included Kingston Frost Park, one of Johannesburg’s oldest green spaces, and the Brixton Water Tower, and other famous structures. All installations followed the 2023 festival theme, “Where the Waters meet the Light”, a nod to Brixton’s unique geographical location along the Witwatersrand watershed.

The 2023 project was supported by the City of Johannesburg Department of Transport, DWR Distribution and OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) and was made possible by the work of scores of volunteers.

The industry-supported SOS Charity Fund - founded by DWR’s Duncan Riley during the pandemic to raise awareness of technical production and its contribution to the economy and social fabric of the nation - sponsored the wages of twelve crew who helped make these major festival installations a reality.

DWR contributed the Robe lighting fixtures while Gearhouse Splitbeam, led by Managing Director Alistair Kilbee, were the primary technical supplier, providing equipment at a significantly reduced cost.

(Photos: Heather Mason/Mark Straw)

www.robe.cz

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