LED Suit Turns Users Into A Surface For Audiovisual Performance

Lighting Choreographer - concept and system description - from drpopeye on Vimeo.

When it comes to audiovisual performances, usually there’s some sort of screen that gets spiffed up with visuals to look all awesome, attracting all the attention and admiration from onlookers. Which is kind of unfair, when you stop to think about it. So how about you ditch the screen and light up yourself, changing the color patterns in sync with some music, causing the kind of jaw-dropping sensationalism usually reserved for the Tony Maneros of this world. With
Dr Popeye’s (Minoru Fujimoto) computerized Lighting Choreographer, you’ll be the star on any dance floor, wowing the crowds in a suit made from LEDs that’s synched with your body’s movement as the music.

We’ve mentioned this LED dance suit before, but this latest video from Fujimoto explains the technology behind this incredible piece of wearable tech.

Strobe-like “white effect version”

Using a graphical interface, the LEDs are controlled using custom software. You can change the color, blinking speed and interval, and the movement of the light, building the pattern by allocating patches on a timeline, heightening any dance performance into a luminous feast for the senses. And in the series of photos below, courtesy of his website, Fujimoto even turns the suit itself into a vehicle for light painting.

But one question remains: where can we get one?