Inspired by Multiverse, a massive installation by American artist Leo Villareal that features approximately 41,000 LED nodes that run through a 200-foot-long tunnel in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C..

As passerbyers move between the East and West buildings on an airport style people mover, the zillions of lights flicker on and off over head creating rhythmic patterns and abstract configurations. The custom designed software also has an element of chance built into it, so it’s unlikely that anyone will see the same routine twice. The project is Villareal’s largest and most ambitious work to date and will be on display through 2009.

Villareal “Multiverse” National Gallery of Art, Washington DC from Walter Patrick Smith, AIA on Vimeo.

via:PSFK.

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The concept of Guerrilla Lighting was created by Martin Lupton, director of BDP Lighting, for the purpose of raising awareness of the power of lighting. Under the guidance of a team leader, each member will take part in creating transient lighting designs by using high powered torches, battery powered LED projectors, luminous dot lights and an array of gels and filters. Instructed to be in a specific position and at a given distance from their target, the teams will simultaneously light up various aspects of the Pool of London’s architecture on cue at the sound of an air horn, creating a dramatic spectacle. The installation will photographed, the lighting turned off and then the team move on to the next site.

The teams will be made up of local lighting designers, architects, interior designers and manufacturers, all of whom are keen to draw attention to the possibilities, and importance of, lighting in the urban environment.
via interactive architecture

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LAb[au] is happy to announce you its new urban interactive installation Touch on the Dexia Tower and Place Rogier in Brussels, Belgium. The project takes as a starting point Brussels 145 m high Dexia Tower, from which 4200 windows can be individually colour-enlightened by RGB-led bars, turning the faade into an immense display.
Instead of considering this infrastructure as a flat screen (surface) displaying pre-rendered video loops, the project is working on the architectural characteristics of the tower and its urban context. The characteristics of the building; orientation, volume, scale… are used as parameters to set up a spatial, temporal and luminous concept, which moreover allows people to directly interact with the tower.
On Place Rogier, at the bottom of the tower, a station is mounted where people can interact either individually or collectively with the tower through a multi touch screen. Both static (touch) as dynamic input (gesture) is recognized to generate an elementary graphical language of points, lines and surfaces combined with physical behaviours (growth, weight, …) taking a monochromatic colour palette (background) combined with black and white (graphical elements).
Once a composition is created, it can be sent as an electronic postcard with a snapshot from the tower, taken from a distant location. It is also uploaded on the specific project website ( www.dexia-tower.com ) where people can retrieve their postcard, as electronic and printable format, with Christmas and New Years wishes from Brussels.
via: Networked Performance

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On the top-floor observation deck of the Rockefeller Center in New York, a unique, interactive space has been created with the use of intelligent LED lighting supplied by Color Kinetics. Cameras track individual visitors as they move within the space, and signal the LED fixtures to create a series of individual colors and patterns.

Conceptualized by Electroland of Los Angeles, the Target Interactive Breezeway has intelligently controlled LED light fixtures on all its surfaces. Each pixel in the “intelligent skin” is composed of four iColor Cove MX units, tightly grouped. These groupings are located in all available wall and ceiling surfaces, behind translucent glass and backlit by white LED strips. Approximately 1,300 units are employed in total.

Data from four stereo video cameras is combined to locate and individually track up to 30 separate visitors as they enter and walk around the space. Upon entry each visitor is automatically assigned a “personality” by the 3-D tracking system and is in turn followed by individualized light colors and patterns.

View the installation in action at http://electroland.net/qt_target_rock_vs02.html
read more at ledsmagazine
via: Mediaarchitecture

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Quiet Revolution Ltd develops and supplies elegant renewable energy solutions, especially small wind products optimised for use at the point of energy demand. Their goal is to promote and enable wind energy as a key technology to renewable and distributed energy generation and microgeneration.

That is very interesting, QR is also available in a unique model capable of creating a striking visual display that is part artwork, part renewable energy device, part communications medium.

Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) embedded in each of its three S-shaped blades fire in sequence as the blades rotate, painting a video screen that appears to hang in the air. This full colour and motion image is clearly visible day and night. Their display can be used either as a temporary installation at a high profile event or as a permanent feature. Early customers for quietrevolution display are mostly city councils across the UK attracted to this unique means of communicating with the local community on climate change and its solutions.

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During the last ten years Lightengine has developed a display management architecture, drawing from its experience with major projects, which now offers truly advanced integration of lighting, moving imagery and real time control. Using high performance, open systems-based computing and networks, and drawing upon reliability and data security techniques from the aerospace industry, Lightengine products allow ambitious and very large installations to be undertaken which would not previously have been possible.

Key to this capability is Lightengine’s Pixelbus� architecture � a structured approach to building and operating heterogeneous display systems for both temporary events or permanent installations � quickly and reliably. Pixelbus� uses industry-standard gigabit ethernet and RS-485 to connect a completely scalable network of low-cost computers – Lightengine Image Generators – with displays, enabling multi-vendor break installations to be configured quickly and easily.

Whether LED panel, DMX lighting or Lightengine’s own revolutionary Patch displays, Pixelbus� reduces complex cabling, matches brightness and colour and offers the highest possible performance without any restrictions of scale or addressing. The result is that even complex installations with real time control can be built from Lightengine components without costly engineering development – integrated solutions using existing multi-vendor displays.
via: Mediaarchitecture

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Cell Phone Disco is a playful experimental installation made out of flashing cells. By multiplication of a mobile phone gadget, only slightly altered consumer product, we created a space to experience the invisible body of the mobile phone.

Flashing cells basically consist of one or more LEDs, battery and a sensor that detects electromagnetic (EM) radiation transmitted by an active mobile phone. When the sensor detects EM waves it sets off the LEDs to flash for a couple of seconds. In general the flashing cells are enclosed in a plastic casing on a strap and sold as a fashion accessory for a mobile phone.

The Cell Phone Disco installation has two parts:
MOBILE AURA Flashing cells with sensors of higher sensitivity are used to detect electromagnetic radiation of active mobile phone in a range of approximately a meter. This way a sort of aura appears around the phone, revealing a part of it’s invisible body.While the user moves around talking on his phone, this aura follows the conversation as a light shadow through the space.
MOBILE DRAWINGMuch less sensitive cells are used to create a canvas for an inkless marker. The LEDs get activated only by an extreme proximity of the electromagnetic source. Moving the phone close to the cells therefore leaves a trace of light, an temporary electromagnetic drawing.

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There are 729 voxels. Each one has a microcontroller on it. There are 27 strings of 27 voxels. The voxels on each string have an address of 1 through 27. They are sent commands using a special synchronous protocol which consists of a frame which contains RGB data for each of the 27 voxels on the string. A frame is sent on every string about 30 times per second. The voxels take the last RGB value they got and PWM the RGB LED to display the proper color.

A PC running FreeBSD generates the patterns to display. The PC converts the RGB data into the 27 streams of data to be sent to each string of voxels. It sends this data across an ethernet connection to an ethernet printer server. The printer server’s parallel port outputs data to the voxel driver board. The voxel driver board has a PIC18F452 which demuxes the incoming data and sends it out to the 27 voxel strings while maintaining proper timing for the synchronous protocol. The Cubatron requires 100K bytes of data per second.
video

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When a viewer approaches the installation space she will witness a dynamic array of blips of sound and blue light emanating in cloud like patterns from all parts of the room. She notices that the source of the light and sound come from hundreds of small organic shaped forms called bions . The bions are communicating, unaware of the approaching visitor.
There is a video…
via WMMNA

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The night writer extends the functionality of LED throwies by allowing a writer to catch a tag in lights. It’s cheap, easy to make and writes 12-inch glowing letters 25-feet in the air on any iron or steel surface…if you stand on a turned over garbage can.

Graffiti Research Lab could introduce you in multimedia street art, animation on walls, larger projections etc, but the night writer could show you a way and tools to create your own wall animation.
via: Makezine

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