Lighting up London

Starting this Thursday 8 February there’s a lighting festival called Switched On London taking place along the banks of the River Thames in the Pool of London area from London Bridge, east to just past Tower Bridge.

Its been organised inconjunction with a major trade lighting show at the Business Design Centre in Islington and the event on the Thames will let the lighting industry demonstrate their latest technology for use in urban environments, especially low energy and low light pollution lighting.

Switched On London will feature temporary light installations at well known sites in that area including the Tower of London, HMS Belfast, London Bridge, the Hays Galleria, Customs House, The Scoop area outside City Hall and others. They’ll be on from around dusk to midnight every night and they’ll also be a illuminated bike ride that anyone can join, a display of street lights powered by donkey dung and a project linked with the first late night opening of the Design Museum.

One example of the displays happening is the one at London Bridge where monitors to detect Bluetooth devices in mobile phones will be installed and as people cross the bridge the lights set up under the bridge will follow the Bluetooth movement. Switched On London is on from 8-16 February.