The ICA show is the latest in a long and inventive list of projects to fuse the imaginative talents and enthusiasm of the Pixel team and UVA. It follows work on Massive Attack's 2004 festival tour which featured a horizontal wall of Pixelline used as a giant low-res LED surface - driven by UVA's latest Dragonfly control software.
PixelLine 1044 and the new PixelLine 110 ec battens were used for the show, along with PixelPAR 90s, all driven with UVA's new D3 software - offering integrated music and visual content control. UVA rigged 21 PixelLine 1044 battens in three broken-up lines - stretching from the stage into the audience. These were all treated as one video surface.
Onstage a single PixelPAR 90 was located behind each of the three performers (UVA are Chris Bird, Matt Clarke and Ash Nehru), secreted underneath the stage platform and shooting out a small beam of light. Also behind each performer was a PixeLine 110 ec batten pointing forward into the auditorium. At the top of the onstage Barco I-8 LED screen behind UVA were three additional 110 ec's blasting out into the audience.
The onstage Pixel fixtures were all utilized as a single pixel and mixed into the D3 system. They were pulsed together or strobed at strategic moments releasing massive energy and making the whole room jump with intense bolts of electric luminosity. They also programmed the additional amber channel of the PixelLine 110 ecs, which enabled enhancement of the fixture's endless colour palette and the production of extra rich and smooth colours.
UVA's Chris Bird says: "JTE is at the forefront of developing LED technology. As end users we are constantly searching for solutions in this domain for our clients and it's great to have this highly productive, experimental relationship with them."
(Lee Baldock)
