--- title: See Drones Draw Shapes in the Night Sky description: In this video, you can watch drones paint the sky with light. canonical: https://time.com/3433214/see-drones-draw-shapes-in-the-night-sky/ author: Ryan Sager article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-29T19:40:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:26:41.416Z article:section: Ideas og:title: See Drones Draw Shapes in the Night Sky og:description: In this video, you can watch drones paint the sky with light. og:url: https://time.com/3433214/see-drones-draw-shapes-in-the-night-sky/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf5df6fec1ceb2ce3/6986a60ad0b6f210a6306617/drone-night-sky.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: drone-night-sky og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See Drones Draw Shapes in the Night Sky twitter:description: In this video, you can watch drones paint the sky with light. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf5df6fec1ceb2ce3/6986a60ad0b6f210a6306617/drone-night-sky.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See Drones Draw Shapes in the Night Sky by [Ryan Sager](https://time.com/author/ryan-sager/) ## Ryan Sager Sep 29, 2014 7:40 PM UTC  by [Ryan Sager](https://time.com/author/ryan-sager/) ## Ryan Sager Sep 29, 2014 7:40 PM UTC Recently, we saw drones [dance](http://time.com/3430309/watch-these-beautiful-drones-dance-with-cirque-du-soleil/) with Cirque du Soleil. In this video, you can watch drones paint the sky with light. [Ars Electronica Futurelab](http://www.aec.at/about/en/) calls them “Spaxels”: --- > “” --- According to the [website](http://www.aec.at/spaxels/): “Swarm size for outdoor performances starts with 30 Spaxels, larger swarms on request.” (via [Flowing Data](http://flowingdata.com/2014/09/26/drones-programmed-for-light-painting-in-the-sky/)) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3433214/see-drones-draw-shapes-in-the-night-sky/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3433214/see-drones-draw-shapes-in-the-night-sky/"},"headline":"See Drones Draw Shapes in the Night Sky","datePublished":"2014-09-29T19:40:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:26:41.416Z","description":"In this video, you can watch drones paint the sky with light.","url":"https://time.com/3433214/see-drones-draw-shapes-in-the-night-sky/","keywords":["Innovation"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf5df6fec1ceb2ce3/6986a60ad0b6f210a6306617/drone-night-sky.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ryan Sager","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ryan-sager/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf5df6fec1ceb2ce3/6986a60ad0b6f210a6306617/drone-night-sky.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"drone-night-sky","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3433214/see-drones-draw-shapes-in-the-night-sky/","name":"See Drones Draw Shapes in the Night Sky"}}]}] ```