Walking Lights

Mohammed Alhamdan’s (Warcheiff) Walking Lights (2022) is an interactive work located on the sidewalk of Riyadh’s Olaya Street that functions by sensing the motion of passing pedestrians and translating it into an immersive experience of light and sound. Reacting in real time, the street lights will interact with every passing person, offering a unique sensory experience each time.

The work aims to reflect the relationship between the public and the city, allowing individual people to temporarily impact their wider surroundings. Mixing with the bright commercial lighting in the work’s setting of Olaya Street, Alhamdan’s installation is instead shaped on the human scale.

Its interactive lights draw attention to public space and the simple act of walking a city’s streets. Alhamdan hopes to celebrate and encourage use of new pedestrian infrastructure, which, still unfamiliar to many in Riyadh, will newly allow them to experience areas of their city on foot, while opening up possibilities for the unique and creative encounters this might entail.