FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Entertainment

Lighting Up A Giant Atom With LEDs And Video Mapping

Visual System team up with Joanie Lemercier to augment the Atomium in Brussels with a fusion of 3D mapping and LED lights.

In 1958 a World's Fair was held in Brussels, Belgium and to mark this monumental occasion they built the Atomium. Designed by André Waterkeyn its structure—steel-clad spheres connected by tubes to form a square—mimics the structure of an iron crystal magnified billions of times. Fast forward 55 years and now, inside this iconic building, resides a light installation called -Infinity, a collaboration between AntiVJ's Joanie Lemercier and Visual System.

Advertisement

It's part of a summer exhibition entitled ID#2013 Poème Numérique inspired byLe Corbusier and Xenakis' innovative video installation Poeme Electronique which featured at the 1958 Expo. The current exhibition also features work by Lab[au] looking at the physical and optical properties of light.

For the site-specific installation -Infinity the artists investigate "the spatial qualities of light". Sticks of LEDs ride up the interior of one of the spheres, augmenting the structure and responding to sounds and tone—this is complemented by a "polygon planet" suspended from the ceiling, built by Lemercier as a cardboard origami structure which has visuals projected onto it. You can find out more about how Lemercier conceived and constructed it here.

-Infinity

To learn more about the piece, we fired off a few questions to Visual System.

How did the workload breakdown between yourself and Joanie for this Collaboration?
The beginning was really when we discovered this amazing space together. Joanie has worked with us for many years in the past on a few projects, we have a great relationship and it is not complicated for us to understand each other. Joanie worked on the narration and graphic programming, and us we worked on the physical space with electronics.

What were some of the challenges you faced when creating such a monumental work?
The biggest challenge was the amount of time we had with the set up: just five days. We also had almost 2,000 kilos of equipment to set up. Also, keep in mind we had 14 dudes living in the same house for two weeks. To make it even more complicated, two days before the opening Joanie’s origami sculpture fell and we had to put it all back together.

Advertisement

What qualities of light are you hoping to explore with this installation?
That’s a really great question. LED and video mapping are really two different worlds of creation even though both involve light. We worked together in layers throughout this project and it was the first time we’ve synthesized these two kinds of techniques. Joanie’s mapping was an amazing asset to have in regards to complex 3D graphic design that can be manipulated to have narration. The luminosity of the LED system is much stronger and can be easily adapted to the architectural lines. This fusion of 3D mapping and LED lights is able to maximize the shock on the audience.

What do you enjoy about collaborating?
The collaboration within -Infinity with Joanie was very surprising in that we created something new and totally different than in past projects. Collaborating can be hard because you must concede as well as delegate your own vision. It’s not always easy, but in this case there was a good union of our different abilities.

How does the interplay of sound and light work in this piece?
Joanie developed a visual universe with images of what he envisioned in this creation and later Thomas Vaquié used this visual universe to compose the music for -Infinity. The final touch was to optimize synchronization between Joanie and Thomas.

Setting up the installation

The exhibition runs now until 22 September 2013.

Images courtesy of Visual System

@stewart23rd