The awe-inspiring art piece has been created by Bristol-based artist Luke Jerram, and features 72dpi detailed imagery, showcasing sunspots, spicules and filaments in extraordinary detail.
The installation, which is accompanied by a soundtrack created by Duncan Speakman and Sarah Anderson, has been brought to Bristol Cathedral as part of BTF+’s long week tech, culture and innovation showcase festival taking over the city from October 6 to 11.
The stunning Helios will open to the public from October 6 as part of BFT+ and will remain there until November 2.
Artist and creator Luke Jerram and BTF+ co-founder Ben Shorrock tell us more about Helios in this video.
00:00I'm one of the co-founders of Crystal Tech Festival, which is happening next week from the 6th to the 11th of October.
00:08And it's all about celebrating all the amazing technology, culture and creativity that's here in our city.
00:16We have a whole set of amazing activities happening right across the piece.
00:22Over 90 events during the week, including showcasing some amazing art, some amazing comedy, music, talking about the latest things that are happening in technology, in AI, in leading edge things around quantum and robotics and cyber security.
00:41But it's a great way for anybody to see all the breadth of amazing things happening in our city.
00:46So one of the events is the launch of Helios. Can you tell us a bit about how it fits within the programme?
00:55Absolutely. So Helios and the work that Luke's doing really encapsulates all the amazing things that are happening about Bristol, Bristol's tech community and its creative community.
01:07So it's a series of super high-res photos of the sun projected onto an enormous 10 metre plus version of the sun.
01:19So using all that technology to show what's happening in our world around us in a creative way and delivering that in a way that really makes you think, makes you think about
01:30how impacted we are by the sun and particularly around net zero and those things, so pulling all those elements together and encapsulating what we're doing.
01:39Helios is a sculpture of the sun and it's taken me about a year to create and it's created from 400,000 photographs of the surface of the sun.
01:49They've all been stitched together and then created this giant 7 metre sculpture which is now suspended in Bristol Cathedral.
01:56And it'll be here for an entire month for people to enjoy. It's internally illuminated with an extraordinary kind of rippling light and comes with a surround sound composition as well by a composer called Duncan Speakman.
02:09So yeah, I hope people enjoy having their close encounter with the surface of the sun.
02:14I created this artwork over the winter really and it was very dark in my studio so actually it was quite nice creating this artificial sun in my studio over the wintertime.
02:23And it's been, yeah, it's been quite a challenge but I'm really pleased with the way it's come out.
02:28So this artwork is now beginning to tour the world. It's just come back from Latvia and so it's really nice to bring it back to Bristol.
02:38And how has it been received so far during its tour?
02:42Yeah, so we've had, you know, 100,000 people or so come to see it so far on its journey but it's quite a new artwork so I'm expecting this artwork will be presented in all sorts of contexts both inside and outdoors over the coming months.
02:56So, you know, if we present this sun artwork in a cathedral the way it will be interpreted will be slightly different if it goes into a light festival or a science museum or something like that.
03:05And again, you know, if we take it to Mexico where the sun is revered, its interpretation will shift slightly depending on, you know, where we put it compared to, say, taking it to Spain or we take it to Iceland in the middle of winter.
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