Architect and jazz musician Christopher Janney addressed a lunchtime crowd of City of Redmond workers, Redmond Arts Commissioners and neighbors at Redmond City Hall May 14.

The presentation “Architecture of the Air: The Sound and Light Environments of Christopher Janney” explored the interactive public art installations that Janney has brought to cities throughout the United States and Europe. From metropolitan airports to university campuses, the New York subway system and urban parking garages, Janney has brought warmth and whimsy to places that might otherwise seem cold or foreboding.

A video clip from “CBS Sunday Morning” showed an instrument in the New York subway that “plays itself if no one else does,” said Janney. “But when complete strangers meet and play the instrument, they have a connection. It puts a little relaxation into a tense environment. … Total strangers may only interact for two minutes, then get on a train and go. But it’s an aesthetic experience in a very unaesthetic condition.”

Yet there’s more to Janney’s sound and light installations than relieving stress.

When people think of “public art,” they think of a statue in a park, Janney noted. Without disparaging that concept of public art, he explained his that his interactive installations are meant “to transform a place into a moment.”

His “Sonic Plaza” at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. includes “four works for the price of one” and took seven years to complete. There are “Sonic Gates” as you approach a historic building, a water wall with percussive sounds, a “Ground Cloud” that emits a mist and teases people to frolic in the spray (think of the fountain at the Seattle Center) and a “Media Glockenspiel,” an imposing element on the university clock tower that comes alive with music and light four times daily.

Janney’s “Touch My Building” installation in Charlotte, N.C. gives employees at a Bank of America location a diversion as they enter or exit the parking garage. Sound and light features can be activated by solving a riddle.

Getting public input to create the riddles and using teamwork to solve the riddles gets people to interact, he added.

Janney’s “Whistle Grove” at the National Steamboat Monument in Cincinnati combines steam, sounds, lights and a historical component, such as people reading excerpts from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Located near Cincinnati’s pro baseball park, the Whistle Grove installation is programmed to go crazy when the Reds score.

Janney’s also created some traveling versions of interactive public art installations, such as “Sonic Forest.”

Redmond Arts Commissioner John Stilin said Janney’s lunchtime lecture and a subsequent meeting with the commission were intended “to start a dialogue, consider the interest level” of bringing such public art to Redmond.

Throughout last year’s Budgeting by Priorities process, finding ways to connect the community was a frequently-mentioned idea. This type of art could be a means to that end.

For information about Christopher Janney, visit www.janney.com.

For information about the Redmond Arts Commission, visit www.redmond.gov/arts.