“Schuylkill Falls” is the first interactive mural for David Guinn, a muralist and the Arts Event and Marketing Coordinator at Arcadia. With motion sensitive lighting, the mural is impacted by passersby—including pedestrians, bikers, and motorists alike—whose movement changes the lighting sequence.

“This project was a big technical leap forward for me, with the interactivity, and also with the robustness of the lighting system,” Guinn said. “When you put anything electrical outside, it is subject to the extremes of the weather and vulnerable to failing. Maintenance is always a huge question in public art. No one wants to have to constantly be going out to repair it, and (knock on wood) I feel good about its durability.”

The mural is located in Philadelphia on JFK Boulevard, just west of Amtrak’s 30th Street Station. 

“It is a corridor that connects important things,” said Guinn. “The train station, a new apartment building, biotech labs, and offices. But the corridor itself is long and impersonal. The buildings are big, with few elements at a human scale. My hope is that the mural brings a bit of humanity and feeling into the streetscape.”

Guinn’s use of interactive LED lighting, an idea that he has wanted to explore for a long time, makes the new mural unmissable.

“LED lights are amazing,” said Guinn, “particularly in the way that they can be programmed to do all sorts of things. Rather than just running a fixed sequence of colors and patterns, I felt that lighting would be even more intriguing if it responded to the viewer in some way.”

Such a design is a major undertaking and has three phases: design, the actual painting, and installing the lighting. Design began with research, including input from the client, Brandywine Realty Trust, and investigation of the site. 

Guinn pondered what was going on around the wall where the mural would happen and considered how he could enhance what was already there, including the flow of the Schuylkill River.

“In my studio, I tried to merge the client goals and the opportunities the site presented,” he said. “I worked on the design by hand, with paint on paper, and looked at it with the client.”

With the client in agreement, Guinn moved into the painting phase, but had to wait for the wall surface to be at least 50 degrees. In May, the mural was painted with a team of assistants, after which the lighting could be installed. Guinn worked with lighting specialist, Justin Geller, to program the lights. 

“I visualized what I wanted [the lights] to do, and he designed the lighting control system to realize the vision,” Guinn explained.

Geller and two installation specialists installed the lighting system over the course of a week, drilling into the concrete wall to attach the lights and run the wiring.

“With this project I worked with a great team, from the manufacturer of the lights to the crew installing them,” Guinn explained. “One day it rained the whole day, but work did not stop. It was like working in a shower that you couldn’t turn off. Had it been just me, I would have gone home and waited for better conditions. But everyone had set aside that time to complete the job, and they were determined to get it done on time.”

Guinn hopes this project is the first of what will be a series of projects integrating interactive lighting into painted murals.

To see more about the Schuylkill Falls mural, check out this Instagram Reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ2vm01kmbC/.