Geist

Geist is an octagonal carousel-shaped artwork that uses a mirror illusion to create a suspended spherical object of light. The installation is interactive; only by the proximity and movement of humans does the suspended sphere of light come to life. Individual LED modules start to flicker and glimmer in the presence of people.

To Geist, the creative studio This is Loop has taken inspiration from neutrino particle. Neutrinos can be created in many ways. For example through reactions between cosmic radiation and the Earth’s atmosphere, and in nuclear reactions inside the Sun. Thousands of billions of neutrinos are streaming through our bodies each second. Hardly anything can stop them passing; neutrinos are nature’s most elusive elementary particles.

A scientific breakthrough was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics 2015, when Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald received the prize “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass”.

Particle physicists use neutrino detectors to hunt and trace neutrinos, sometimes called “ghost particles”. Inspired by these enormous detectors, Geist is an exploration of the complex game of hide and seek that scientists play to find and provide evidence for the existence of neutrinos.

This is Loop

This is Loop is an award-winning UK based creative studio, led by Harriet Lumby and Alan Hayes. They create and tour original audio-visual artworks around the world and have reached audiences upwards of 1.5 million in the last couple of years.

Their acclaimed sculptural artwork plays with reflection, moving light and illusion and sits at the intersection of art, science and technology.

Geist won a LIT lighting design award in 2024 and the Experiential Art category in the CODAawards 2025.