LONDON.- A stretch of the Thames in central London and Canary Wharf is set to be transformed this winter by a series of contemporary art works placed directly in the water and along its banks.

Now in its second year, the groundbreaking art show, DRIFT, gets fully underway on Thursday, 4 November, and continues into early January next year.

Staged by leading London arts company, ILLUMINATE PRODUCTIONS, the installations include breathtaking waterfalls at two locations on the river. The work, bit.fall, will feature words from live news feeds falling through a curtain of water. The amazing technology used to create bit.fall allows words to be displayed in mid-air in the droplets. bit.fall will be located on the Bankside walkway near Tate Modern, as well as beneath the DLR bridge at Chancellor Passage, Canary Wharf.

Also set to charm visitors is an origami paper boat that will be assembled with the help of the public on the waterside, and then sailed away by the artist.

Other installations include a ghostly, wind-powered fog light, which will glow from the water next to Bankside Pier, while the speed and intensity of London life will be marked in a video installation on the North Bank, opposite Tate Modern.

All installations may be viewed during the day but lighting elements mean artworks will be viewed to best effect when they come to life at night (with the exception of the origami boat).

Caroline Jones, DRIFT curator and co-founder, ILLUMINATE PRODUCTIONS, says: “We are delighted to be staging DRIFT again this year and helping to bring art directly into the lives of people enjoying the river. The art works are all in the public domain so people will come across them naturally. Making contemporary art freely available to the public is at the core of what we do.”

“We are also very pleased to be building on the success of DRIFT08, the first time contemporary artworks were placed directly in the Thames. The show was a major success, capturing the imagination of people across London, the UK, and internationally.

International and emerging artists taking part include James Capper (England), Julius Popp (Germany), Frank Bölter (Germany), Christian Grou (Romania), and Tapio Snellman (Finland).