Traxon Technologies innovative lighting fixtures were used to turn a windmill into a sensational piece of LED art. Equipped with over 1,000 ultra bright Dot XL-9 lighting fixtures (9,000 LEDs) the world’s biggest revolving media screen displays a multitude of stunning colors as well as medium-resolution video content. Challenged by the difficult winter-weather conditions as well as the implementation of an installation on a constantly rotating object, artist Michael Pendry chose Traxon as partner for realizing this spectacular project due to its innovative and customizable lighting solutions. IP67-rated the Dot XL offers exactly the flexibility needed for this demanding project. Available with 3, 6 or 9 high performance LEDs per dot casing the single controllable dots are mounted on an elastic cable with customizable pitch offering the possibility of an installation on almost any surface or three-dimensional shape. Furthermore the Dot XL has a robust casing that ensures full outdoor capability. Controllable by DMX as well as DVI input signals Traxon’s Dot XL displays full color lighting effects and spectacular video animations. Visible from a distance of up to 30 kilometers the LED windmill is a pioneering installation and a symbol for green energy, due to Traxon’s cutting-edge innovation using only as much electricity as one hair dryer or two water kettles.

via/by:traxontechnologies.com

The University of Liverpool was enthusiastic about the idea of illuminating the facade of their Active Learning Laboratory using endless artistic colour scenes to highlight the building’s presence. They wanted to make a statement that the University was not only providing a new education building with first class facilities, but also one which would advertise itself to the City of Liverpool and to the wider audience in an area which surrounds the city from a far. There is also lot of competition to attract students between the University of Liverpool and John Moore’s University and the client wanted this building to “outshine the competition.” Being located next to the Roman Catholic Cathedral, the highest landmark in the City, Arup Lighting proposed the use of rich vibrant, multi coloured images to “paint” the facades with light in order to raise theprofile of the University at night.

The Active Learning Laboratory façade was developed with Sheppard Robson Architects as part of the University of Liverpool’s Engineering Building refurbishment. The facades 1500 m² of glazing floats 1.0 meter above the main building and consists of alternate rows of 1400 mm dotted pattern and 800 mm clear glass panels on each of the seven levels. A total of 413 No dotted panels provide a highly reflective surface for illumination using specially selected RGB (19212 x 1W) LED linear luminaires. The lighting effects can be programmed to display simple numbers, letters and geometric shapes as well as an infinite array of lights, colour, morphing designs and patterns with selective fading over set time periods.

Via/By: arup.com

Imagine that pixels could fly out of your computer screen and create an immersive, luminous cloud capable of displaying digital information in three-dimensional space. This is the vision beyond Flyfire, a new project put together by researchers at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab and Aerospace Robotics and Embedded Systems Laboratory (ARES Lab). Flyfire uses a large number of remotely controlled, self-organizing “micro helicopters”. Each helicopter contains small LEDs and acts as a smart pixel. Through digitally controlled movements, the helicopters perform elaborate and synchronized choreographies, generating a unique free-form display in three-dimensional space.
“It’s like when Winnie the Pooh hits a beehive: a swarm of bees comes out and chases him while changing its configuration to resemble a beast,” said E Roon Kang, a research fellow at the SENSEable City Lab who is leading the project. “In Flyfire, each bee is essentially a pixel that emits colored light and reconfigures itself into different forms.”

Using the self-stabilizing and precise controlling technology developed by the ARES Lab, the motion of the pixels is adaptable in real time. The Flyfire canvas can transform itself from one shape to another or bring a two-dimensional photographic image into an articulated shape. “Today we are able to simultaneously control a handful of micro helicopters, but with Flyfire we are aiming to scale up and reach very large numbers,” said Emilio Frazzoli, head of the ARES Lab. “Flyfire opens up exciting possibilities: as on a conventional screen, pixels can change color, but now they can also move, creating a transient trace of light in three-dimensional space,” said team member Carnaven Chiu. “Unlike traditional displays that can only be seen from the front, Flyfire becomes a three dimensional immersive display that can be experienced from all directions.”

via/by: senseable.mit.edu

Thanks to Oliver Schürer for the hint!

Open Up is an advanced project development workshop for the digital facade of Medialab-Prado. From February 9 through 23, working groups will develop selected projects in a collaborative way. The event includes theoretical activities February 9, 10 and 16 with lectures by the teachers of the workshop and also Erkki Huhtamo and Jennifer Steimkamp.

Technical information:
The MEDIALABPRADO’s LED screen uses the Philips Color Kinetics iCOLOR FLEX SLX system.
It is formed by a series of rectangular panels that are fixed to the facade of the building that faces

Digital facade’s size, inferior rectangle:
Width: 14.5 m (48′)
Height: 9.4 m (30′)

Digital facade’s resolution:
Horizontal resolution: 192 lines
Minimum vertical resolution: 125 lines
Maximum vertical resolution: 157 lines
Resolution: 192 x 157

Nodes/Pixels:
Number of nodes (inferior rectangle): 24.000
Number of total nodes: 26.680
Each node is composed of 7 LED’s; 2 red, 3 green, and 2 blue.
The iCOLOR FLEX SLX system can display up to 64.000 million (36bit) of RGB additive colors, of
constantly variable intensity.

via:medialab-prado.es

Create your own Shooting Star and share your wish with your loved ones and the millions of commuters!
From December 16th 2009 to January 4th 2010, you can visit the project’s website by clicking here and create your own Shooting Star.

The interaction is easy and fun, accessible to all from 5 to 105 years old. You will then receive an email indicating when your Shooting Star will be displayed on the Electrabel Power Station Cooling Tower in Drogenbos, the south side of Brussels. Come see it LIVE or watch it on the webcam on the project’s website. Everyone’s Shooting Stars will be displayed on the Tower from 5pm to 8pm, Brussels time (GMT+1) until January 4th 2010.

via/by:magicmonkey.net

The history of Olympics and Expos is one of heaviness– of mass and monumentality and conspicuous expenditure on immovable objects whose legacy has occasionally endured, but have always been outdated. Our most extraordinary contemporary feats of engineering are more stealthy, more extensive and more invisible than these traditions of glass and brickand steel: Code rather than Carbon.

The Cloud proposes a new form of monument – a new form of collective expression and experience, and an updated symbol of our dawning age. It proposes an entirely new form of observation deck, high above the Olympics – from which one can not only see the whole of London, but the whole of the world, immersed in the euphoric gusts of weather but also immersed within that new, pressing and endlessly compelling environment in which we increasingly congregate – the digital sublime.

The principal effects of the Cloud are generated from their context – from the aerial sea of swarming data, from the diverse populations of London, the UK and the wider string of global villages, and from the seamless stretch of weather that unites us all. The structure is comprised of a filigree central array of columns – servicing as circulation systems dropping from the sky like the tendrils of a banyan tree system.

The inflatables are saturated with an LED information system which densifies locally into lightweight info-screen hotspots where visitors can navigate information about the immediate surroundings. The luminosity and air pressure of each sphere is independently controlled –– giving rise to the networked, self-organizing Cloud.

via: the CLOUD | www.raisethecloud.org

What could a facade only concerned with cultural issues do, how might it look like and how could it challenge commercial advertising-surfaces? An experimental setup to provide an answer has been displayed at the Kunsthalle Project Space in Vienna. Three properties that differ severely from commercial displays have been realized: the screen is transparent, it gleams its image to both of its sides the inside an outside at once, it offers a non-homogenic resolution. Once realized it produces kinetic and perspectively effects in the very substrate of the medium itself.

The classical architectural ornament of the diffuser layer, a laser cut parametric design pattern, gets an overlay by pixel animation and group interaction. As the designer is confident that what he calls the upcoming “urban mass media” shows an urgent demand not simply for appropriate content but more over for a “new ornamental iconography”.

Hardware: Zumtobel, System Capix
Infrastructure for Interaction: Mobilkom Austria
Architecture: TU Wien, Institute für Architekturwissenschaften, Fachbereich Architekturtheorie - Oliver Schürer

The cladding of the former Bayer corporate Headquarter in Leverkusen with the mesh systems Mediamesh® and Illumesh® is almost completed. The last of the overall 684, each 7, 20 metres long and four metres wide weave panels have been assembled. The 122 metre high building is going to be completely cladded with the stainless steel mesh with interwoven LED profiles. 18,000 square metres of the stainless steel mesh - that equals the size of approximately two and a half soccer pitches – cover the 29 floors of the building. The 5.6 million LEDS will turn the distinctive building into a landmark of a successful industrial history.

Mediamesh® and Illumesh® are joint products of GKD – Gebr- Kufferath AG and ag4 media façade GmbH.

Thanks to Andrew Hyman for the hint!

by: ag4, GKD

The Indemann was designed by the Maastricht architecture firm Maurer United Architects as a symbol of the structural-political evolution of the former mining region near Inden. This 36 meter high, accessible steel sculpture, built on a brown coal dump, resembles in its form a primitive robot. The Indemann gets its unique brightness from Illumesh® - a semitransparent skin made of stainless steel mesh with interwoven LED profiles by GKD – Gebrüder Kufferath AG. During the day, the metallic surface shimmers and reflects light, then at night a computer-controlled light show comes to life. The worldwide patented system is a cooperative product of GKD and ag4 media facade GmbH, Cologne. The Indemann is the first public project in Germany where Illumesh® is in use. After the spectacular dress rehearsal at the beginning of August, which attracted already over 2.500 spectators, the official inauguration of the steel colossus is on September 5th.

via: gkd.de, wikipedia.org

Thanks to Andrew Hyman for this hint!