The global Earth Hour event takes place during Pixelache on Saturday 27 March, 20:30-21:30. Individual people and organisations are asked to switch off the lights during this one hour.

Pixelache and Helsingin Energia are organising a special event for Earth Hour - we will present a prototype of Energy Pulse artwork by Miska Knapek as part of the Urban Projection Lab. The work will visualize the total energy consumption amount in Helsinki city area. It is a bit paradoxical that we are projecting this work when everyone else is switching the lights off - to balance this we are switching off a lot of lights in the same square and our system needs only a fraction of energy compared to the bright lights that usually shine in the same spot.

On the same day a prototype of interactive sculpture Power Flower will go online and Helsingin Energia will publish a new, real-time energy meter online. The meter shows the total energy consumption in Helsinki city area, and will advice people to save energy during peak hours. The peak energy consumption hours cause most pollution and are also the most expensive.

Both the prototypes of artworks and the energy meter are a result of the discussions that have been going on between Helsingin Energia and the invited artists during the past months. We have learned that energy consumption in Helsinki area is actually a carefully planned, complex system that behaves according to many different variables. We hope to make at least some of these variables more visible so that people and organisations can help to save energy (and therefore save environment and money).

More information about the collaboration between Pixelache and Helsingin Energia.