It turned out not to be little green men from Mars, but an ambitious collaboration by New York artist Peter Coffin with London-based Cinimod Studios, and their design director Dominic Harris. Harris, who has worked with Pharos Architectural Controls on other projects, approached the control manufacturer for the Untitled (UFO) project, knowing that the Pharos LPC X could handle the requirements both in terms of the channel count and in realising the design brief for the playback of effects, but also - because the unit is entirely solid state - it would cope with all the vibration and movement being suspended from a helicopter travelling on sweeping and erratic flight paths.
The mechanical, electrical and structural needs of bringing this flight together included a 6kW generator, mountain-rescue pilots and an Mi2 helicopter. Suspended 50m below is the 7m diameter aluminium structure of the UFO, incorporating 3000 RGB LED nodes from sponsor Color Kinetics/Philips. 9000 channels of control (over 17 DMX universes) warranted an LPC 20 from Pharos, with the added benefit of reducing the amount of control equipment that the helio need to carry as the LPC X natively outputs CK's control protocol directly to the power supplies for the fixtures.
Harris explains: "I modelled the show in the designer software, and made use of the external control interfaces to make the UFO light display remote-controllable via SMS text messaging. The London-based Pharos team provided fantastic support throughout the project, and for the flights the Pharos controller performed flawlessly as the brain of the UFO."
The inaugural flight of this unusual piece of art coincided with the Gdansk Festival of Stars, and it is planned to appear in the skies in other parts of the world in the coming months.
(Jim Evans)
