In summer 2025, Sysco Productions — the story engineers behind experiences such as the Formula 1 and Harry Potter exhibitions, and the new V&A Storehouse — launched Skyframe Piano, a world-first interactive public installation that fuses live music with generative media in real time.
Set beneath the Skyframe LED ceiling at One Fen Court, London, the experience invites everyone — from casual passersby to concert-level pianists — to sit at a street-level piano and create their own skyscape. Every note played triggers a dynamic visual response overhead: sunlight, snowfall, lightning, cherry blossoms, shooting stars, and floating lanterns animate the sky in real time. The results are entirely generative — no two skies are ever the same.
Skyframe Piano is part of a wider public art initiative — Skyframe — developed by Sysco in collaboration with Generali and BNP Paribas, as a platform for emerging creatives and new forms of cultural storytelling in public space.
The Skyframe LED ceiling itself — one of Europe’s largest suspended digital displays — was originally installed in 2018 as part of Eric Parry Architects’ design for Fen Court, a development by Generali Real Estate. The 180m² screen was suspended 9.5 metres above a medieval passageway that cuts through the building — a void intended to create a moment of upward reflection amid the City’s bustle.
Since then, the screen has served as a creative canvas for curated digital artworks, marking Remembrance Day, Pride, Earth Day, Halloween, and Christmas — deepening the screen’s presence as a quiet cultural landmark in the City of London.
Skyframe Piano marks a new chapter in this journey — the first fully interactive experience on the canvas. While public pianos are familiar sights across London, and generative visuals have long been used in concerts and exhibitions, this is the first time such a fusion has been made publicly accessible in a free, outdoor setting. It is a non-commercial project: there are no tickets, no queues, and no advertising. Just creative expression, freely offered to the city.
It’s not just reactive for spectacle’s sake: the visuals follow a structured narrative arc, unfolding over the course of each player’s performance. The longer and more expressively one plays, the more the sky transforms — from rainfall and thunder to serene snowfall, and finally to a custom “sky sculpture” of lanterns, stars, and aurora.
Since launch, the Piano has drawn thousands. Around 1,000 people a week have stepped forward to play — children discovering their creative power, musicians returning daily to perform, and strangers pausing to look up and listen. The effect has been emotional and unifying, and the response extraordinary. The project has been widely shared on social media, organically generating reach without advertising or paid promotion.
For Sysco, this initiative is about widening access — to wonder, to creativity, and to public digital space. Skyframe Piano was built on the belief that interaction, storytelling, and beauty should be part of everyday urban life — and that immersive digital experiences can exist for their own sake, freely offered and community-led.
To extend this vision further, the Skyframe Awards were recently announced: a national competition for UK-based emerging artists. The winner will receive a dedicated exhibition slot on the Skyframe canvas, as well as structured creative support. It’s just the beginning of what’s possible when cultural innovation, digital technology, and civic generosity come together.
Partners
- Generali
- Generali Real Estate
- BNP Paribas Real Estate
- Munich Re
