About Doncaster Festival of Light 2023

24th November - 3rd December 2023

Doncaster Minster

Film by David8 Photography

Main Artwork

Universal Everything Exhibition

Friday 24th November - Sunday 3rd December

In November-December 2023 Right Up Our Street showcased three artworks inside the Minster Church of St. George from Universal Everything. Universal Everything are a collective of media artists, experienced designers and future makers. For the opening weekend only there were additional Family Activities available in the grounds of the Minster, sponsored by Dickinson Wood and Visit Doncaster.

About Universal Everything

Universal Everything (UE) are an international media art and design collective established in 2004. Using emerging display technologies as their canvas, UE produce screen-based artworks that subvert cinematic CGI, physics simulations and real-time gaming graphics, to create new forms of moving image. Their work is at times immersive and interactive, often journeying into augmented or virtual reality. It exists at the balance between abstract and figurative – the point at which a hint of life emerges, and technology becomes soulful.

More About Universal Everything

TRANSFIGURATION IN THE MINSTER

Photography by David8 Photography and Sally Lockey

What does evolution look like? The ever-changing walking figure in Transfiguration depicts a figure that transforms in front of our eyes, echoing our own emotional upheaval.

This take on nature is elemental, with a focus on fire, rock and water. The further they walk, the more they evolve, their stone footsteps echoing metal, liquid, wood. It is as if we are rebuilding life itself in some primal form. The figure feels familiar but also larger than life. The sound design heightens its sense of colossal realism, as if the geological building block of life are forming as we watch.

Credits

Creative Director Matt Pyke

Animation Chris Perry

Sound Design Simon Pike

FUTURE YOU IN THE MINSTER

Photography by David8 Photography and Sally Lockey

Future You is a digital mirror that presents a synthetic version of the viewer. The interactive artwork only comes to life when it is activated by someone in front of it. The harder you work, the stranger and more exciting its response to your movement. There are 47,000 possible variations to its robotic shape and form, and every interaction reflecting the viewers movement is entirely unique. When each individual’s time is up, this joyful, techno mirror collapses.

Credits

Creative Director Matt Pyke

Design and Unity Development Chris Mullany

Realtime Look Development Adam Samson

Sound Simon Pyke

Exhibition Designer Tonkin Liu

Studio Manager Simon Thompson

Executive Producer Ben Young

INTO THE SUN IN THE MINSTER

Photography by David8 Photography and Sally Lockey

Our interactive artwork Into the Sun responds to the movement of the viewer. Here we stand in a natural landscape, which only comes to life when we interact with it. Plants germinate and grow, mimicking our movements. Stems and leaves bend and lean towards us, obscuring the warm digital sun, manipulating the sound. Into the Sun represents the Japanese word ‘Komorebi’ - the moment in the early morning or late afternoon when sunlight shines through the leaves of trees.