How light and code can transform a city | Leo Villareal

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Leo Villarreal is a light artist. He manipulates light and color to create dazzling images and experiences. In his talk, he reflects on how light can shape our perceptions of the world around us and why he believes it's a uniquely powerful tool for self-reflection and connection.

0:37I'm an artist, but I don't use traditional materials. I use code and light as my palette. And I came to this in a somewhat unexpected way. I was a kid interested in this thing called Burning Man before it became the global phenomenon that it is today. At this point, it was a tiny event out in the desert that no billionaire had ever heard of. This was also misunderstood as a hippie gathering in the desert. So in 1994, I got a tent and went out to the playa. I set up my tent, and the first thing that happened was I got profoundly lost. It was amazing to experience this as a 20-something-year-old, and I was interested in having to relearn to navigate in this new kind of space.

1:25By my third year out there, I decided to do something about it and created the contemporary equivalent of breadcrumbs. I made a beacon for myself, using 16 strobe lights and a microcontroller, and I mounted this creation on top of my mobile home. I programmed it at the lowest level, with zero being off and one being on. And this is the first time I connected software, light, and space. And it definitely helped me get home at night. And my neighbors were also immensely grateful.

1:55In 2008, I had the chance to bring what I learned at Burning Man to an art museum. Instead of 16 strobe lights, I had a chance to work with 41 ,000 LED nodes that I had installed in a 200-foot-long corridor at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. So I used my computer to engage in concepts of emergent behavior, which means I was improvising, trying things out, learning things. And when I would find something compelling, I would take those sequences layered in a randomized fashion, non-repeating. I don't use any kind of imagery or text in my work, And I'm interested in creating these abstract journeys.

2:31So as people go on this walkway, they're kind of washed by these patterns and this kind of abstract storytelling. Several years later, I joined a group of people that wanted to enliven the Bay Bridge, which was sadly, you know, under-recognized and appreciated in San Francisco. 250 ,000 cars move across the Bay Bridge every day, so it's really the Bay Area's workhorse. But it's really overshadowed by the postcard beauty of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, which is just a few miles away. So we thought, how can we use light to transform this piece of infrastructure and change people's perceptions of it?

3:06So I started, and I thought, well, what would I do if the bridge was my canvas? So I was working on this animation in Photoshop and different 3D tools. And I was very excited when I placed 25 ,000 lights on the suspender cables of the bridge. But I thought, this is probably never going to happen because of the scale and the complexity. but to my surprise, we started showing it to the owners and stakeholders and the people who ran the bridge, and they got very excited, which for a group like that, they aren't normally an artist-friendly organization. So we went to the next step. They said, okay, let's take you up to the bridge.

3:43It's one thing to do it in Photoshop and a whole other to encounter it physically. So I did my first cable walk. They gave me a harness with a small shock absorber, and we started walking up the bridge. So looking down one side, it was 250 feet to traffic. On the other, 225 to the water. This was a moment of awe, but also of abject terror. Eventually, I got over that and I started to realize and then see the beauty that surrounded me, the fog, the light, the shadow of the bridge on the water. And I started to think, if I could only translate what I'm seeing here into the sequences of light, I could create really amazing artwork.

4:24So miraculously, we got an approval to do this. All the work had to be done from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. And we had a very brave crew of people that went up on the bridge with LEDs and started zip-tying it, literally zip-tying it to the cables of the bridge. We had a basket that we hung 250 feet over the water. It's truly terrifying. And cars are zipping by at 60 miles an hour, and you're protected just by a cone. In addition to the LEDs, we had to put hundreds of power supplies across the bridge, run miles of fiber optic cable in order to distribute all of our data to the lights. But this was really an amazing example of communal effort, and everyone worked on it, felt a real sense of participation, like we had all done this together.

5:04So finally, once all the lights were installed, I got to do my work. I got to connect my laptop to the bridge. And it's quite exciting to be able to control something, the scale of the Bay Bridge, with a simple laptop using my custom code. And when people realized I was doing this, I had huge crowds around me cheering. So two and a half years later, after much organizing, you know, a lot of challenges, we finally were ready to illuminate the bridge in 2013. On opening night, there was wind and rain like I had never experienced in San Francisco. We all ended up on Pier 14, huddled under umbrellas with local politicians, patrons, family members, team members.

5:45and I had a terrible moment of anxiety. What if this thing doesn't turn on? Fortunately, it did. It turned on and I was relieved and there was great celebration. Literally thousands of people were cheering and dancing despite the terrible weather. So through infrastructure, light and code, the Bay Bridge finally received the recognition of its more glamorous neighbor. The Bay Lights had transformed the bridge through this addition of light and it really changed people's perception of it. The artwork was so successful that we had a two-year permit, and that got extended to 2023. Meanwhile, leaders in London took notice.

6:26The bridges over the Thames were very dark and disappeared into the blackness at night. Some of them were barely lit at all. So they launched an international competition called the Illuminated River. 100 teams participated, and I ended up winning the commission. So my... Thank you.

6:48My concept was to create a ribbon of light that could unify all the historic bridges in London into one monumental artwork. So in 2019, we launched the first phase of the project, beginning with London Bridge. Finally, the beauty of the bridges was revealed through the addition of sequence light. These bridges used to be very dark, and pedestrians would walk as quickly as possible past them. But suddenly, through this transformation, we had created these meditative focal points. And I'm very interested in the idea of entrainment, by which our bodies synchronize with external signals. And I could literally watch people seeing the lights and watch them slow down in the middle of this bustling city.

7:29In 2022, we launched the second phase of the project. And this was right as the UK was coming out of a countrywide quarantine. But the lights represented resilience and rebirth. And it was very exciting to be able to bring this public art to everyone, and it was free and available to all. Perfect pandemic art. I also was able to add this 21st-century layer of sequence light to these historic structures. And I started learning about the history of the Thames as a creative place that had inspired Turner and Whistler and Monet. And Monet had actually painted some of the exact bridges I was working with.

8:05So it was quite an honor. I'm very humbled by it and really proud to be able to create this gift for London. So I never could have imagined that me getting lost out in the desert would have led to these monumental public art projects. But I think it's due to the power of light and the power of light to transform cities. And I often describe my pieces as digital campfires that people gather around, and they create a sense of wonder and awe and bring people together, and they bring out the best in us as humans. Once something has been transformed, it's very difficult to go back. The Bay Lights was designed as a temporary project, and last year, due to some technical issues, we had to turn the piece off.

8:49But the Bay Lights was not forgotten. Out of love for the project, community organizers raised funds, and we were able to turn the Bay Lights on next year, and the lights will shine for an additional 10 years.

9:08So I hope you all will come to San Francisco, and I appreciate the time. Thank you.

9:19That was Leo Villarreal at TED Next 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curationguidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmanivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faze-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.