The story behind the lights
LUMA Arles asked Studio DRIFT to celebrate two anniversaries at once: 150 years of Impressionism in France, and ten years of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, the town where Van Gogh painted some of his most famous skies. Ralph Nauta and the DRIFT team used AI swarming algorithms to translate the brushstrokes of Van Gogh's paintings into movement, so that the drones do not draw a picture of the Starry Night: they move the way the paint moves.
The performance flew over the Parc des Ateliers, with the stainless-steel LUMA tower lit below it. Swirls of blue and white turned into the night sky of the painting, a burst of orange echoed the sunflowers, and the evening closed with the name of the place that made it possible written across the sky.
A Studio DRIFT performance for LUMA Arles, produced by Drone Stories. Drones by Nova Sky Stories (a separate company). Film by Finn Bech, Boris Zwiers, Cineshoots and Minnaar.
