Case Study

AMPLITUDES AT CANARY WHARF WINTER LIGHTS FESTIVAL

Limbic Cinema created an immersive installation in perfect harmony with Canary Wharf’s new Eden Dock, as part of their Winter Lights Festival.

Credit Limbic Cinema Tags Feature: Audio Reactivity, Feature: Interaction & Interactivity, Industry: All, Industry: Fixed & Interactive Experiences,

London’s Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival approached Limbic Cinema with the idea to inaugurate a water screen in a new location: Eden Dock. Designed to elevate mental and physical well-being through the power of nature, its tiered wooden steps framing the waterfront venue made for the perfect canvas for a contemplative, highly immersive installation, providing a momentary escape from the city’s bustle.

In the words of Limbic Cinema’s Tom Price:

"Amplitudes is a large-scale artwork that explores the many forms and behaviours of waves. Drawing on scientific imagery and an interest in the underlying structures that shape the natural world, the Limbic Cinema team developed a visual language inspired by oscillations and quantum wave phenomena—processes that underpin everything from physics and biology to human perception.

"Projected onto airborne water particles at Eden Dock, the animations create a holographic effect that hovers and shimmers above the water's surface. Beginning with simple oscillations, the work evolves into increasingly intricate forms, revealing how complexity can emerge from a small set of fundamental interactions.

"It was great having an abstract brief—it gave us the actual breathing room to get lost in the Notch toolkit."

Notch was equally useful through previs and production. We first used it to build a simulated water screen for the pitch—which really helped sell the vision—then used it to visualise how water and reflections would actually behave, which was hugely useful for creative decision making. We have always found the Notch workflow way more exploratory than other software; it feels less like building and more like discovering the look as you go. Which is a huge win.

Tom Price, Creative Director, Limbic Cinema

The team moved quickly, transitioning seamlessly from previsualisation to production using Notch’s Hybrid Renderer, part of Notch’s NURA architecture, to rapidly play with and iterate on Cloth Deformers and Shading nodes. To achieve a colour system as ever-evolving and fluid as the water’s movement, they paired gradient HDRIs with ray-traced reflections, creating the impression that light and hue were transforming organically over time with the liquid canvas. The team also used Modifiers to drive TouchDesigner and Ableton for full audio-reactivity.

The final result was so successful that it was voted the people’s favourite installation for this year’s festival.