Spanish artist SpY has transformed a former railway factory in Florence with HALOS, a monumental kinetic installation commissioned by Bright Festival that uses rotating gold and silver discs to create a celestial landscape.
A rhythmic choreography of light defines the initial encounter with the work. Suspended in the void of the historic industrial site, a series of reflective circles performs a continuous, silent dance. These metallic elements do not merely hang; they breathe through rotation, catching the ambient light and throwing a fragmented spray of reflections across the rugged interior surfaces. The choice of gold and silver creates a dialogue between solar warmth and lunar coolness, ensuring the atmosphere shifts subtly as the day progresses.
The conceptual vision behind the project centers on the activation of space through essential geometry. By utilizing the circle—a shape synonymous with cycles and infinity—the artist strips away complexity to focus on the raw interaction between material and movement. This simplicity is deceptive; as the discs turn, they overlap and intertwine visually, creating an ever-evolving field of forms that feels less like a static object and more like a living organism inhabiting the building’s skeletal frame.
Navigating the verticality of the site is essential to fully grasping the scale of the piece. The atrium is organized across three distinct levels, each offering a radically different vantage point. From the ground floor, the viewer looks up into a suspended sky of shimmering metal; from the higher galleries, the installation becomes a dense, topographical landscape of light. This multiplicity of perspectives ensures that the work is never perceived the same way twice, as every step taken by the audience triggers a new visual reading.
The sensory experience is one of profound suspension. There is a weightlessness to the way these heavy metallic forms occupy the air, challenging the permanence of the factory’s brick and steel. The light produced is not just a byproduct but a physical presence that permeates the space, softening the hard edges of the industrial volumes. It invites a contemplative pace, urging visitors to slow down and observe the minute shifts in reflection that occur with every rotation.
Technical precision underpins the fluid movement of the kinetic installation. Each disc is calibrated to rotate at a speed that feels natural rather than mechanical, avoiding the frantic energy of a machine in favor of a celestial pace. This mastery of engineering allows the technology to disappear, leaving only the poetic effect of the reflective surfaces and the “halos” of light they cast upon the surrounding walls. The work becomes a bridge between the site’s manufacturing past and its new life as a cultural catalyst.
This latest intervention follows a series of impactful global projects where the artist has used light to redefine public and private spaces. In Xi’an, China, the Divided installation explored similar themes of spatial fragmentation, while the Matriz project in a Budapest turbine factory utilized industrial scale to create a communal sensory experience. These works collectively demonstrate a fascination with how light can be used as a primary building material to alter our perception of the environment.
The contextual impact of HALOS lies in its ability to humanize the vastness of the former railway works. By introducing a work that responds directly to the presence and movement of the viewer, the artist transforms a derelict void into a place of active engagement. The audience is not just a witness to the art but a functional part of the visual logic, as their movement within the atrium dictates how the reflections overlap and multiply.
The dialogue between history and contemporary art is a hallmark of this studio’s practice. Whether working in a bustling metropolis or a silent factory, the goal remains the same: to interrupt the ordinary and provoke a state of heightened perception. HALOS succeeds by being both massive and delicate, a metallic heartbeat that brings a temporary, shimmering life to the industrial memory of Florence. It serves as a reminder that even the most rigid structures can be reimagined through the intelligent application of light and motion.