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Projectors Enliven “Sleepwalkers”
NEW YORK — The Museum of Modern
Art in New York has premiered “Doug Aitken:
Scenes from “Doug Aitken: Sleepwalkers”
Sleepwalkers,” a large-scale public art project
by contemporary artist Doug Aitken. The
film is scheduled to be
projected upon seven
exterior facades on and
around The Museum of
Modern Art (MoMA) and
surrounding buildings in
New York City, through
February 12, 2007. Scharff
Weisberg designed and
implemented the AV
technology, and the installation
was presented
by Creative Time (a nonprofit
public art organization),
using Christie digital projectors.
Scharff Weisberg president and partner
Josh Weisberg commented, “The scope is monumental:
it’s outdoors, it’s in the middle of the
winter and the technology will be state-of-theart.
The planning, which has been going on for
more than year, has been equal parts technology
and logistics as we work within the requirements
of the museum and the artist to specify a
system that will work reliably every day.”
The projection of Aitken’s narrative video
tale of New York and New Yorkers on seven facades
of MoMA on West 53rd and 54th Streets
features characters from a variety of walks of
life — a worker who maintains signs in Times
Square, a street drummer, a businessman, a
postal worker — the video magnifies poignant
moments of their everyday lives into a dialogue
between real pedestrians and the complex architectural
landscape they traverse. The simultaneous
projections — some as large as 100
feet wide — will have synched, choreographed
movements, but the individual energy and personality
of each character will be evident.
“We encouraged Doug to shoot HD so the detail
would be crystal clear in the very large image
sizes we are working with,” notes Weisberg. “The
content is being replayed in HD video as well.”
To accomplish the playback Scharff Weisberg
provided synchronized, networked, customized
media servers separated by great
distances. “The real challenge is distributing
this network over the seven different screen
locations in such a way as to maintain frame
accuracy among the image streams,” Weisberg
explains. “We are using GPS-enabled time code
generators as our master timing source and
wireless networking to link the sites.”
Scharff Weisberg deployed state-of-the-art
Christie Digital Systems projectors, including
five Roadie 25K 3-Chip DLP projectors (a 25,000-
lumen model) and three S+20 DLP projectors.
“Typically, projectors such as these can be found
in cinemas or at large-scale corporate events, not
outdoors in January supporting an art installation,”
Weisberg points out.
Giant LED Shines on Games
DOHA, QATAR—Element Labs, Inc, was
contracted by Doha Asian Games Organizing
Committee (DAGOC) to create a large
custom LED screen. Especially designed for
the opening and closing ceremonies of the
15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, the exterior
Versa® RAY screen made its debut during the
Opening Ceremony at Khalifa Stadium.
DAGOC main contractor David Atkins
Enterprises was the producer of both the
Opening and Closing Ceremonies. DAGOC
& DAE challenged Element Labs to create
a massive LED screen for the ceremonies
having the highest possible resolution
and video performance. The display covered
over 4,500 square meters, or 45,000
square feet.
Chris Varrin of Element Labs designed
the screen. “We built a prototype system that
was 100 square meters, and brought it out to
Doha,” explained Varrin. After winning the bid,
the EL team refined the design to meet the
stringent requirements necessary for wind
loading and weatherproofing, as Doha’s desert
climate is subject to frequent windstorms
and sandstorms.
In keeping with the circular structure
of the stadium, the screen was designed to
be curved. The entire screen is 165 meters
wide along the curve, reaching 39 meters at
its highest point. The screen is comprised of
20,000 individual Versa RAYs, which laid end
to end would span 58 kilometers (over 36
miles). 762,000 individual LEDs were used,
with a pixel pitch of 77 millimeters.
The Versa RAYs themselves were mounted
onto large trusses with integral catwalks
called “spines”. These spines are approximately
11 meters long and hold 148 Versa
RAYs in varying lengths, from 750 millimeters
to 3 meters. “It’s a pretty massive piece of kit
when it’s all put together,” Varrin said. “The
spines were assembled and tested in the stadium’s
parking lot over a period of a couple
of months.” Once completed, the spines were
hoisted into place on the enormous steel
support structure via crane, and assembled
into the final screen.
Element Labs built redundancy into every
aspect of the screen, including redundant
video feeds, processing, data distribution and
power supplies.
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XL Video has XL Slate of Shows
continued from page 39
of different LED technologies — including
low res Barco MiPix panels that clad the
front of the set fascia and the SoftLED drape.
The MiPix effectively giving a second low res
surface downstage of — and contrasting to
— the SoftLED.
Kylie’s IMAG mix was beamed onto two 21
by 11 foot side screens, going to 16:9 format
for the “Homecoming” leg of the tour. Each
screen was fed by one of XL’s new Christie
S20 projectors, described by Heaney as “Absolutely
fantastic pieces of kit”.
The DJ Shadow tour utilized a massive projected
set as the show’s visual centrepiece.
XL supplied 9 Barco RLM G5i projectors,
complete with Barco 0.8:1 wide angle
lenses to rear project onto the 24 foot wide
set/projection area, which consisted of a top
and a bottom screen - the top measuring 6ft
high and the bottom 12 foot. The set and
the screen surfaces were custom built and
sourced via Litestructures.
Basement Jaxx
Finally, lighting designer Ivan Morandi
produced a highly inventive, fully integrated
lighting and visual show for Placebo’s recent
UK and European arena tour, with video equipment
and crew supplied by XL Video UK.
Morandi produced all the pre-recorded
video content himself which was stored on
two Catalyst v 4 digital media servers. He also
wove feeds from 16 cameras into the mix – an
amalgam of Toshiba mini cams and Panasonic
DV cam units with remote pan and tilt heads.
40 PLSN FEBRUARY 2007
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