It is unique in the world: at the light festival the emotions of Vilnius citizens will turn into the colours of the Three Crosses illuminations

The first Vilnius Light Festival promises  surprises to Vilnius citizens and the city guests during the capital’s birthday (January 25). One of them is the  illumination on the Three Crosses Monument when the emotions and the physiological state (pulse, the rate of breathing )of the passers-by will be reflected in colours. The more curious people  will be invited to assess their  emotions by  the installed camera at the entrance to the Bernardine Gardens. Everything that the visitors of the festival will experience, by what emotions they will be overwhelmed and how their physiological state will change  will be reflected and illuminate from afar by the appropriate colours in real-time.

“It is a unique project that has  hardly had any equivalents in the world so far. The ROCK project survey has been conducted for the second year and it  has shown that at the same time Vilnius citizens feel strong and contradictory feelings, the strengthening of positive feelings and the weakening of negative attitudes in public spaces during the organized events in the center of the capital  and the cherishing  green areas have a positive effect on people‘s health, happiness and productivity. We will let the citizens of Vilnius themselves  be assured of that  while appreciating their emotions during the festival and observing one of the city‘s  illuminated symbols,” emphasized VGTU professor Artūras Kaklauskas.

Every three seconds the changing colors on the Three Crosses Monument will reflect the strongest passers‘-by emotions, states and expressions of happiness captured by sensors at different points in the capital.

The first cross of the monument on the left will reflect the emotional state of Vilnius citizens  and the city guests (happy, sad, angry, surprised, frightened, disgusted), trampling down  the happiness expression  and excitement, the middle cross  will reflect the affected state (boredom, interest or confusion), and the third cross on the right will reflect  a physiological state: the average pulse of the crowd, the rate of breathing.

On January 25-27 people  will be able to observe their emotions on the  stand at the entrance to the Bernardine Gardens which is specially created for the light festival by the  team of scientists at VGTU.

The monument of the Three Crosses will be illuminated by 7 colors  which will express  a certain human emotion or a physiological state: green – happy, blue – sad, yellow – frightened or embarrassed, purple – excited or interested, orange – disgusted or bored, sky-blue – sad, red – angry .

At 6 different points in Vilnius where  the strongest passers‘-by  emotions on the Three Crosses monument will be captured by sensors and featured in special lamps are a unique experiment by Vilnius City Municipality and VGTU and it  is implemented with HORIZON 2020 program ROCK (the Optimization of Cultural Heritage usage in Creative Knowledge Cities). The Neuroanalytic System that will be created in the capital during this project may become one of the most innovative tools for planning public spaces in the future.

On the occasion of Vilnius  birthday (January 25th), the city will be illuminated by  22 light installations created by light artists from 8 countries.  Vilnius citizens and the city guests will be able to enjoy  the created installations in the center of Vilnius  for three weekend evenings  until  January 27.

During the festival light installations will be located in the old town of Vilnius, creating a continuous  route that the organizers promise to announce  the last week before the festival. Three evenings – Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 6 pm to 11 pm the play of lights will illuminate  different buildings and spaces of Vilnius – from bridges to churches.

The information about Vilnius Light Festival  will be announced at the Facebook event and website www.lightfestival.lt