Power Flower turns energy consumption into art

Andy Best’s electronic artwork “Power Flower” took the first price in a city art contest organized jointly by the Pixelache electronic art festival and the City of Helsinki’s energy company Helsingin Energia.

Power Flower is a kinetic artwork that reflects energy consumption in the city based on real-time data on electricity, district heat and district cooling consumption. The lower the consumption, the more handsomely the flower blooms.

Flower Power will emerge in Helsinki some time during 2010 after it has been tested with a prototype. The runner-up in the contest, Miska Knapek’s artwork that creates aesthetic visualizations of energy consumption, will also be implemented.

The goal of the project is to make energy consumption a visible element in the city and to remind citizens that they can play an active role in energy saving.

Flower Power follows a similar collaboration by Helsingin Energia and Pixelache in 2008, which produced an artwork titled Nuage Vert (“green cloud”) by HeHe (Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen): outflowing steam from the Helsingin Energia Salmisaari powerplant was used as a screen for protected images that reflected the neighbouring areas’ power consumption.