Audio-visual artist Robin Fox promises to light up Melbourne with a show of high powered lasers, the likes of which the city has never seen before.
As part of the RISING festival he will illuminate the Yarra River with a free sound and light installation that will stretch almost a kilometre along the water, using industrial lasers he only discovered in 2020.
"I ended up trying these lasers and all of a sudden, it was spectacular, it was amazing, it was unlike anything I'd ever seen," he told AAP.
"Suddenly all these ideas I had for works in the city, I thought they will work ... they will be brilliant!"
The lasers are usually used in the production of solar panels and can produce a concentrated beam of light that travels a vast distance, with a glow visible up to 160,000 km away.
The light show, titled Monochord, will be synchronised to a composition by Fox, which will be broadcast from locations along the river and streamed through an app.
The internationally renowned artist said creating a work in the city has come with challenges - from preventing crowds venturing too close to the powerful beams, to light restrictions imposed by aviation authorities.
"So you make the artwork, that's fine, but you've also got to make sure it's not going to hurt anybody and that's a weird position to be in, but it's just an occupational hazard," he said.
Monochord will also see fountains installed in the river to shoot jets of water into the sky.
"There's something absolutely beautiful about the way water articulates laser light, I call it a carpet of diamonds," Fox said.
Nothing could be further from the Melbourne of even six months ago, when the city had become one of the most locked-down in the world.
RISING was first scheduled for 2020 but virus restrictions saw it postponed for a year, and in 2021 it was only open for one day before lockdowns saw it cancelled a second time.
This year's program incorporates work from more than 800 artists - making it a much-needed lifeline for the city's recovering arts sector.
The festival runs from June 1-22, with tickets on sale Friday 25.
