What might London look like a thousand years from now?
Michael Pinsky explored that question with a simple public art installation, Plunge, which appeared in London in the early months of 2012.
Pinsky wrapped three iconic London monuments, the Duke of York column by St James's Park, the Paternoster Square column near St Paul's Cathedral, and the Seven Dials Sundial Pillar near Covent Garden, with a simple band of blue LED lights at a height of 28 meters.
The Guardian suggested that these blue rings "could be mistaken for those ultraviolet fly zappers popular in kebab shops."
The lights, which had no accompanying signage or expalanation, marked a waterline one thousand years in the future, when sea level rises will have put much of the city underwater. (There is no scientific data to determine the height of the Thames in the year 3012, so the 28 meter mark was chosen by artistic license).
The glowing halos were meant to have Londoners and visitors to the city see the monuments in a new light (literally), and elicit a vision of a possible future, one where anthropogenic global warming leaves London a ghost town of towers and monuments emerging from the water.
Photos of Plunge can be seen here and here.
Plunge was commissioned by Artsadmin and LIFT.