Bristol Harbourside Lightwall
Bristol, UK
Elements of lighting and video converge in this unique interactive installation at Millennium Square in Bristol, conceived by artist Tim Knowles with renowned design firm Speirs and Major Associates.
The originating lighting designers , Jonathan Speirs & Carrie Donahue Bremner of Speirs & Major Associates, were appointed by Crest to study the facades of the development that addressed the public square, working closely with the architects Faulkner Browns.
The aptly named “Lightwall” measures 157 by 39 feet (48 by 12 meters), and combines an intelligent LED lighting system with innovative video control technology, movement sensors and cameras to respond to passers-by with engaging patterns of light.
The wall comprises 288 vertical runs of iColor® Flex SL, encompassing a total of 10,000 individually controllable LED nodes. The runs are staggered between 2 and 28 inches (50 and 700 mm) apart with varying drops to achieve contrast. The iColor Flex SL strands were attached to a special cage affixed to the front of the building. Complementing the direct-view design, approximately 60 ColorBlast® 12 fixtures were installed to back-light the display withvibrant, saturated color.
Color Kinetics’ Video System Manager was used to transmit video content from a media server via Ethernet directly to the LED nodes, each one acting as a controllable pixel. A movement tracking system and custom mapping software was used to “interpret” the action of passers-by and relay the information to the media server, which in turn converts the data into RGB signals to be understood by Video System Manager. The result is a series of dynamic light trails that traverse across the wall.
Lighting Technology Projects (LTP) installed and programmed the entire display. According to project manager Terry Reeves, iColor Flex SL proved an ideal choice due to its inherent flexibility, as the product was required to accommodate the building’s contours.
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