1. Reflecting the Stars – Public Art Installation – The Windmill Factory
Press Coverage
Watch the lights twinkle on as the sunsets over the Hudson. Jon Morris and his
team at the Windmill Factory mounted 217 LED capsules on the remnants of a
pier to resemble constellations.
Engineered by Google’s Adam Berenzweig, “Reflecting the Stars” reminds us of
the light pollution that masks the night sky for more and more of the world.
At Pier 49, Hudson River Park at Bank St., until the end of Oct. when the sun can
no longer power the installation.
Information: +1-818-987-9435; http://www.thewindmillfactory.com.
Free associate New York and you are bound to think of lights. The fantasy image
of a city in lights is likely more of a faux-pas-fantasy today in the face of Green-
ness and concerns of light pollution. Just think of the difference between a night
sky in New York and say . . . Kentucky. That’s exactly what Jon Morris, director
of the Brooklyn-based The Windmill Factory did. Born in a small Kentucky town
where he frequently gazed at stars above Lake Cumberland, Morris grappled
with the idea of the disappearing night sky over New York City and other
metropolises of the east coast.
In a gesture to bring the night sky back, Morris teamed up with T/K firm/collective
Kontraptioneering, Google Senior Software Engineer Adam Berensweig, and
interns from MIT and NYU’s Interactive Technology Program, who all started
toying with wirelessly-controlled, solar-powered LED lamps for the decaying
pilings of Pier 49. The result is Reflecting the Stars, an interactive light
installation consisting of radio-controlled, steel encased luminaries perched on
top of the pier posts. Each luminary, named after constellations that are
becoming increasingly obscured, can be dedicated with a personal message
online here.
So flip, switch, and clap off your thoughts of bright lights in the big city and
remember the lights you used to wish upon. Reflecting the Stars happens from
sunset to midnight through October 25. Special events at the Pier 49 site in the

2. Hudson River Park include a sunset launch with Charles Renfro (DS + R) and
Assembly member Linda Rosenthal, and starting on Tuesday, August 30, weekly
onsite telescopic stargazing with astronomers. Read more here for information
about Reflecting the Stars.
Due to damage by Hurricane Irene, the opening reception of and sunset
picnic for Reflecting the Stars is rescheduled for tomorrow, August 31, 7:17
at the Pier 49 site in the Hudson River Park.
See the Stars...in the Hudson; Honoring Zone A Evacuees
HUDSON RIVER — A team of volunteers rowed out from Pier 49 to install 217
LED lights on top of posts in the Hudson River. The point? "Reflecting the
Stars," a public art project with the goal of "recreating a night sky with visible
stars on the Hudson River." After a one-day delay thanks to Hurricane Irene, the
project's opening reception is tonight at sunset, 7:17 p.m. sharp. Special guest:
Charles Renfro of Diller Sofidio + Renfro. [CurbedWire Inbox]
Reflecting the Stars
Jon Morris has been a theater producer, social entrepreneur, champion
springboard diver—and an artist, in which last capacity he serves as director of
New York-based arts collective The Windmill Factory. Since 2007, he and a band
of likeminded collaborators have conceived and crafted a series of elaborate
public projects, ranging from a grassy 30-foot-tall slide in the Nevada desert to a
multi-media performance piece on themes of atomic destruction.
The group’s newest endeavor is “Reflecting the Stars.” Located just off the shore
of Manhattan’s West Side in the Hudson River near Bethune Street, two hundred
seventeen solar-fed LED light capsules, lashed to defunct shipping-pier posts,
mimic the natural night sky above light-polluted New York. Users can punch up
different constellations using a purpose-built console fixed to the walkway railing.
The project was two years in the making, and it made its debut August 31st with

3. a subdued sundown function for some forty-odd attendees scattered on picnic
blankets near the riverbank. “It was just a beautiful night,” said Morris.
The event took place one day behind schedule, after Hurricane Irene tore
through town and threw the installation equipment of its delicately engineered
balance. Charles Renfro of firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro credited Morris for
logistical perseverance—including, crucially, the artist’s dedicated “schmoozing”
of key leaders in business and government who helped make the project a
reality. One of the latter, State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, was on hand,
and she too had praise for “Reflecting the Stars”. “Every child,” she said, “should
be able to see the night sky.
Reflecting the Stars
Living in the city, we are well aware of the effects of noise and air pollution; just
walk down Broadway pretty much any time of the day and feel your blood
pressure rise. But what about light pollution? It obscures constellations, disrupts
natural ecosystems, and can also negatively impact our health. The Windmill
Factory wants to bring these issues to light during Climate Week NYC. They've
installed solar-powered LED lights on the decaying posts of Pier 49 to recreate
the constellations of our night sky. Now you don't have to leave the city to do a
little bit of stargazing.”
- Whitney Eden, Flavorpill
Video Piece: Melena Ryzik on the Hudson River art installation “Reflecting the
Stars,” and a tour of a housing development in the South Bronx with the
architecture critic Michael Kimmelman.
Produced by Gabe Johnson

4. The Stars Come Out in the Hudson
By Rosanna Boscawen
Wednesday night, as The Observer crossed the West Side Highway at Bank
Street and walked over to Pier 49, the pink-orange sun was reflecting onto the
Hudson River, and people had filled the surrounding patches of grass, waiting for
the official unveiling of a new public artwork by artist Jon Morris called Reflecting
the Stars, which was sitting out in the water.
Mr. Morris and his team had spent the past few days attaching wirelessly
controlled, solar-powered LED lamps onto the gnarled wooden posts that once
constituted the pier in an arrangement that replicates the constellations that one
would see in the night sky, looking west from the pier, were it not for New York’s
substantial light pollution.
The opening had been delayed by 24 hours because the threat posed by
Hurricane Irene had forced his installation team to remove an accompanying
plaque and solar panels days before it was due to open. “They can get rained on,
but they can’t be submerged,” Mr. Morris told The Observer.
“We left the stars in the water,” Mr. Morris said, “and some of them got skewed
out of place, but we didn’t lose any.” He sounded elated. “Then we had to
reprogram everything and there just wasn’t enough time.”
The project had cost $25,000 to install and was paid for by a variety of
companies and foundations. It will be in place until there is no longer enough
power from the sun to light them up at night—“probably the end of October or the
beginning of November,” Mr. Morris said.
New York assemblyman Linda Rosenthal and Charles Renfro of Diller Scofidio +
Renfro, the architecture firm behind the nearby High Line, were on hand to
discuss their support for the project.
For Ms. Rosenthal, the work also has political significance. She is currently
working to pass a bill that would create dark-sky reserves, light-free areas set
aside to allow people to see the night sky, and promote new shades for
streetlamps that would lessen their blinding glare. “At the moment I have a lot of
opposition,” she said, “but something like this could really turn things around.”
Mr. Renfro took a more philosophical approach to the work. “Reflecting the Stars
links itself to realms near and distant,” he said. “It is a new way of observing our
surroundings, helping us imagine the invisible if mankind were not so visible.”
New York has become a bastion for public art lovers of late. We asked Renfro
how this was different from public art elsewhere in the city.

5. “I like the city’s public art,” he said. “But this has the whimsy of The High Line; it
connects with something else.”
Later, Mr. Morris told the crowd that Buddhism advises its devotees to go out and
look up at the night sky in order to relieve stress. We tried to imagine looking up
at his LED stars from the bottom of the Hudson, but we couldn’t quite manage it.
“We look down at the stars today,” we thought, as the blue-white lights flickered
on and off in their constellations in the now dark, starless sky.
Star Light, Star Bright
By Staff
The little-guy-against-the-odds story of Jon Morris continues this week. Creative
director of The Windmill Factory, two-and-a-half years ago Morris had the idea of
creating a starry night sky over the Hudson River for New Yorkers who wanted a
glimpse of something other than smoggy skies.
With no real knowledge of electronics and no money, Morris managed to inspire
enough people to believe in his dream that the result was the invention of
wirelessly controlled solar-powered LED lights, all creating Reflecting the Stars at
Pier 49, just off of Bank Street. You can even dedicate one of the “stars.”
Originally aimed to be unveiled at sunset, Aug. 30, Hurricane Irene swept
through town and did extensive damage to the 217 LED lights Morris and a team
of volunteers had assembled along the raised posts just beyond Pier 49. Now the
sunset picnic has been postponed until 7:17 p.m., Aug. 31, to give workers a day
to repair the damage (as you can see in the image). Speakers such as Morris,
Charles Renfro of DS R, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal and Google and
Project Software Engineer Adam Berenzweig will deliver opening remarks, with
an after party immediately following the reception.
Reflecting the Stars will continue twinkling over the Hudson River every night,
from sunset to midnight, through Oct. 25. For more information (or to dedicate a
star), visit www.thewindmillfactory.com.

6. Lighten Up! "Reflecting the Stars" Opens at Pier 49
Now that that the Hudson has calmed down in our neck of the woods following
Hurricane Irene, tonight might be a good night to stop by the opening of Jon
Morris' "Reflecting the Stars" at Hudson River Park. Morris, creative director of
collective the Windmill Factory, has placed 217 LED light "stars" atop the
decaying posts popping out of the Hudson near Pier 49 to raise awareness about
air light pollution in New York City (Indeed, local readers likely have "What
are...'stars?'" think balloons over their heads right now.).
Even neater, visitors on shore can press buttons to highlight constellation patters
within in the lights that are otherwise obscured by the city's haze. The installation
will be up starting today through October 25th, from sunset to midnight, as is tied
to Climate Week NYC September 19th-26th. Here are some shots of "Reflecting
the Stars" all lit up as well as photos of the installation process.
Reflecting the Stars Splashes Constellations on the Hudson
By Alexander George
New York City’s light pollution leaves the stars invisible to the unassisted eye,
making the city feel “like living in a low-ceilinged room,” according to artist Jon
Morris.
In response, the Brooklyn transplant created Reflecting the Stars, an art
installation that re-creates constellations on the surface of the Hudson River. The
display, unveiled earlier this week after a delay caused by Hurricane Irene, brings
the natural wonder of the night sky down to sea level off Pier 49.
“I grew up in Kentucky, and I’d go lay out on the pier and look at the stars,”
Morris told Wired.com. “You think about what happens when you can’t see stars.
Are we losing our sense of humility?”
Off the west side of Manhattan, near 11th Street, Morris and his collaborators
have installed 201 lights on the stray pylons of an abandoned pier. The lights are
activated by a nearby plaque, which visitors can operate to evoke the pattern of a
real constellation on the water’s surface. As the tide rises and falls, the lights will
take on different patterns. As Morris says, “Nature consumes the installation.”

7. The project began as a guerilla art installation. “I was thinking I’d just grab some
lights, jump in, and attach them,” Morris said, but he thought it was too beautiful a
concept to install with haste.
The idea went beyond haphazard wires and waterproof lights. “The lights needed
to disappear and not disrupt the beauty of the wood posts,” he said.
Morris began with no knowledge of electronics, but fulfilling his vision for
Reflecting the Stars meant adopting some major science. He worked with
industrial designer Andy Baker to design the lights; when the question of
compensation came up, Baker just asked that Morris take him to his first Burning
Man festival in Nevada.
Morris and Baker tried every way to make the lights work, but they kept running
into problems with the solar charging sustaining bulb life. Jon reached out to a
friend of a friend from his Indonesian dance ensemble, and soon Google
software engineer Adam Berenzweig came on board.
Berenzwieg had to realign his expertise. Rather than working with servers where
memory is measured in terabytes, the lights for which he was writing software
held around 1 kb of data. “I would spend an hour debugging and realize the
problem was that I would overwhelm it with debugging code,” Berenzwieg said.
The problem was power consumption. The lights had to conserve power during
the day and run at a steady power level at night, all while self-monitoring battery
life. “I designed a radio protocol to run every five seconds,” pacing the power
output, Berenzwieg said.
Once they finalized the light setup — each unit consists of eight LEDs with four
white and four blue lights, a small battery, and an integrated solar panel — they
had to be sure the lights were ready to go. “We covered it with a marine sealant,”
Morris said. “We could scrape at it and smash it, but once we set them, we
couldn’t fix them if we wanted.”
‘Blue does crazy things with your eye along the visible spectrum.’
The last days of testing were conducted on the roof of Morris’ apartment building.
They decided to go with the blue lights. “Blue does crazy things with your eye
along the visible spectrum,” he said. More importantly, the blue light distinguishes
the constellations from the New Jersey skyline.
Once Berenzwieg and Morris finalized the design, the lights were set in pipe
casings that would rust and decay with the wood upon which they were set.
When the lights were ready for mounting, Morris and five other eager volunteers
paddled out to the jagged pylons in canoes, donned wetsuits and lifejackets, and
entered the Hudson’s opaque water. “Everyone wanted to come and install
them,” Morris said. “‘They were saying, ‘Enough of this coming over to solder
diodes. We want to get in the water.’”

8. Morris and his installers took four and a half hours to set up the lights. They
arrived at high tide and rode the flow from the highest pylons down to the lowest,
affixing each light with a zip tie, legs akimbo, clinging to the barnacle-encrusted
wood.
At Reflecting the Stars‘ unveiling, after speakers discussed light pollution and the
importance of humility in the face of stars, a woman whose mother had recently
died came to spread her ashes across the lights. She spoke about how her
mother would be moving on to a new galaxy this way.
The lights will be on display as long as the LEDs last.

9. Full List of Coverage:
Adaequatio: http://adaequatio.es/blog/
All Green Info: http://allgreeninfo.com/200-solar-powered-leds-light-up-nyc-s-
hudson-river-for-reflecting-the-stars/
Antenna Magazine: http://www.antennamag.com/online/2011/09/reflecting-the-
stars-a-solar-powered-light-instalation-on-the-hudson/
Apartment Therapy: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/the-weekend-guide-
august-26-2011-national-local-online-sales-and-events-calendar-154428
Architizer: http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/28340/28340/
Arch Paper: http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/archives/22725
Art Cards: http://artcards.cc/newyork/show/28540-The-Windmill-Factory-
Reflecting-the-Stars-Recreating-The-Night-Sky-in-The-Hudson-River-curated-by-
Jon-Morris-Hudson-River-Park
BOMB Magazine: http://bombsite.com/issues/1000/articles/5366
Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-02/tiesto-headlines-
electric-zoo-lauryn-hill-trinity-s-bach-n-y-weekend.html
Climate Week NYC: http://www.climateweeknyc2011.org/events/2011-09-25
Cool Green Mag: http://coolgreenmag.com/2011/08/30/200-solar-powered-leds-
light-up-nyc%E2%80%99s-hudson-river-for-%E2%80%98reflecting-the-
stars%E2%80%99/
Curbed: http://ny.curbed.com/tags/reflecting-the-stars
Dexigner: http://www.dexigner.com/news/23700
Dwell Magazine: http://www.dwell.com/articles/reflecting-the-stars.html
Editor at Large: http://www.editoratlarge.com/interiordesignevents/reflecting-the-
stars-sunset-launch-picnic
I4u: http://www.i4u.com/related_articles/01Yfgfmcxj5SH
Inhabit: http://inhabitat.com/nyc/217-solar-powered-leds-light-up-the-hudson-
river-for-reflecting-the-stars/
Flavorpill: http://flavorpill.com/newyork/events/2011/8/31/reflecting-the-stars
Lowe Counsel: http://www.lowecounsel.com/blog/2011/09/wishing-star-
preserving-art-stargazing

10. My Architecture: http://www.my-architecture.com/news/reflecting-the-stars-
recreating-the-night-sky-in-the-hudson-river
NY Observer: http://www.observer.com/2011/09/the-stars-come-out-in-the-
hudson/
NY Press: http://www.nypress.com/blog-9624-star-light-star-bright.html
NY Times:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/10/06/arts/100000001096048/artsbeat-
october-6-2011.html?scp=1&sq=reflecting%20the%20stars&st=cse
On Hudson: http://onhudson.typepad.com/onhudsoncom/2011/09/reflecting-the-
stars-pier-49-on-hudson.html
Paper Magazine:
http://www.papermag.com/2011/08/is_there_anything_dreamier_tha.php
Sara Cara: http://saracera.com/a-starry-night-on-pier-49-created-by-209-sola
Short & sweet: http://www.shortandsweetnyc.com
Socializ Arq: http://socializarq.com/architecture-news/reflecting-
manhattan%E2%80%99s-stars-onto-the-hudson
Socially Superlative: http://sociallysuperlative.com/2011/08/25/the-windmill-
factorys-reflecting-the-stars-recreating-the-night-sky-in-the-hudson-river/
Village Voice http://www.villagevoice.com/events/reflecting-the-stars-2917458/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/09/reflecting-the-stars/
For more information, contact www.Sparkplug-pr.com.