|
|
|
|
|
   |
| Site specific work is always the most
invigorating and invariably the most challenging. Lighting designer Dave Bryant (DB), no stranger to creative idiosyncrasies in the pursuit of work, was intrigued when approached by Scottish environmental arts organisation nva Arts to design an eco-friendly lighting installation for their live promenade performance project “The Storr – Unfolding Landscape”. This journey was developed combining music from Nordic composer Greer Jenssen, performance art from Alex Rigg and moody lighting by Bryant to highlight the breathtaking darkness of the Storr Footpath, a mountain walk on the beguiling Isle of Skye. With space for 250 guests per night, the two and a half hour experience features a 4 km uphill hike followed by a 500 metre steep ascent …. And then a slower decent to appreciate the slinky shadowy blackness of the night and the amazing scenery, rocks, geological outcrops, the Corrie and the pinnacles known as ‘The Old Man of Storr’.. nva has built a reputation for building complex shows and experiences in unusual exterior locations. Another high profile project -“The Path” in 2000 – took place in Glen Lyon, Perthshire, with Bryant also involved in creating atmospheric lighting. nva’s projects are developed through several phases including location research, community involvement, strategic implementation, technical production and promotion. All of this enables the inclusion of a wide range of objectives like community arts and education programmes, green and cultural tourism marketing proposals and – specifically in the case of the Storr Footpath - the prototyping of new environmentally sensitive lighting technology. For Bryant the challenge of designing and developing a unique 8 week installation of ‘low impact’ lighting this fantastic geological location and an area of outstanding natural beauty was an LD’s ultimate dream come true. The area is also subject to a crop of triple SSI (specific Scientific Interest) regulations – the most stringent possible. Every piece of equipment that Bryant intended to use had to be accompanied by a detailed environmental impact assessment covering all aspects, including elements like the impact of increased footfall through visitors enjoying the installation. All equipment had to be kept off the ground to enable the necessary rainfall and light to get into the ground, so special platforms were constructed for the equipment Early on in the planning process, vehicles were decreed too intrusive a method to get kit onto site, so 90 per cent was helicoptered in. Power was located at the bottom of the site. Gennies were out of the question, so that necessitated a 3.5 Km mains run up over the mountain, but the cable had to be as small as possible, and Bryant needed to power up at least 22 lighting positions. For sources, he researched extensively into the automotive lighting world discovering a variety of HID discharge lightsources and long range tungsten halogens. These were purchased and then fitted them into a range of different reflectors and lamp housings. These were then fitted wither into architectural lamp housings or trusty weatherproof James Thomas PAR cans. The main mountain lighting is divided into two zones. Zone 1 at the summit of the mountain, consisting of 120 lights, and zone 2 in the forest at the base which features 140 units. Lighting fixtures used include asymmetric 500W exterior floodlights and 12V exterior birdie up-lighters. A 200m ‘floating path’ within the forest is illuminated with 30 CCT M650 zoom profiles, with exterior PAR 56 low level highlighters. Magical projected images are created amongst the silhouetted trees using Mitsubishi 1700 lumen digital video projectors, and Color Kinetics LED ColorBlocks are used for flickering and shimmering effects. He turned to Avolites to find a dimming solution. Avo’s J B Toby had just 3 weeks to design and produce a suitable device, and came up with the Avolites ART-DC dimmer, which will now be available as part of Avo’s standard Avo’s ART dimming range. The 12 Volt dimmer is powered by industrial batteries. The entire forest system is controlled by 12 way ART-DC dinners in 6 locations, complete with over 25Km of TRS cable! A conventional radio DMX system is used for data control in the forest. For high areas with clear line of sight, radio DMX was the only possibility in terms of data transmission. Once again Avolites stepped into the technical breach as Bryant utilised an Avo eDMX systems to beam signal around rocks, past pinnacles, circumventing crags and generally to skirt any number of natural obstacles up the mountain.. The first eDMX transmitter is sited at ‘base camp’ approximately 1 kilometre up the mountain, located in a cabin, generating a field across the entire mountain face to two receivers, one of which acts as a repeater. The other is sited 600 metres and approximately 45 minutes hike away. Across the Corrie (about half way up the mountain) from the repeater are three receivers all picking up signal. The distance from the control position to the Corrie is approximately 750 ft and that across the Corrie approx. 600 metres. Reaching the Old Man and the Corrie, guests enter a very different world. The environment is pitch black at night and until light is introduced, the audience has little or no notion of the scale of the landscape into which they have arrived. “The basic design concept”, explains DB “Was to create a very simple single crisp image of the geological environment.” Strong colour was to be avoided as too artificial, so pale tints and colour correction filters are used. From a very early stage in the design process a range of hues was agreed, all reflecting the cold stark almost polar environment. The environment within the Corrie (a natural geological amphitheatre) is surrounded with dramatic rock pinnacles and stacks. These features provide the main lit elements. The rock falls and scree slopes provide a foreground feature, and the towering 500m cliffs rising on above the audience a dramatic climax. The lighting design gradually unfolds the landscape, revealing individual rock features or groups of features in a slow choreographed sequence, demonstrating the environmental spectacular. A fantastic sense of distance comes into play when 75m high rock features situated high on surrounding mountains over a kilometre away from the audience are revealed. It is difficult to imagine the scale of this environment - cliffs running for several kilometres, individual rocks in the scree slope up to 20m in diameter. Its vast! At one moment within the sequence, a solo performer is revealed. Situated over 500m from our audience the rest of the site fades to black, so the performer appears to float within a huge sea of darkness. Restrictions dictated that only 18 lighting locations could be utilised across this site – run off a single 32A cable. Lateral thinking went onto overdrive and they developed a lighting system that works entirely from rechargeable batteries. Each lighting position has a platform with a pair of 180A/12V Leisure batteries, charged cyclically throughout the day and night from the 32A single phase mains run. They then power a series of 4 channel 12V Avo ART-DC dimmers, each of which has an Avo eDMX unit attached to it, receiving control signal from a remote point 1.5 Km away at the top of the forest area. The radio signal is bounced around the Corrie by 7 radio DMX transceivers. Control is an Avolites Pearl. “It’s a simple show to operate” as installations go says Bryant. The different installations run in loop cycles programmed into the Pearl’s Theatre Stack, allowing the show to be fully automated. The next task was finding a suitable light source to work in this environment. Numerous tests initially led them to investigating light sources from the marine and aviation industries, but this also proved ferociously expensive, so Bryant settled on light sources developed for the automotive and rally car industry. They are using a range of Cibi – Oscar rally headlamps specially adapted to fit into a standard Par 64 lamp housings. The 12v 120w Tungsten halogen light sources have “exceptionally good beams for long throw applications” and operate well on the 12v Avo dimmers. They are also using 12v Philips HID light sources - small hot re-strike discharge lamps which are incredibly bright at just 35 Watts and at 12v extremely good on power consumption. The lamps are then mounted in a long throw (approx 5 degrees) Hella Spotlight fitting which is in turn mounted into a Standard Par 64 housing. For closer range units a cheaper 12v 35w standard ring car spotlight fitting is built into a conventional Par 56 housing. A total of 140 lights, 22 x 180A batteries and chargers, twenty 4 way 12v Avolites dimmers and 7 radio DMX systems mounted on 12 lighting platforms are utilised for the Corrie lighting system. “This part of the project has been a huge brain teaser” says Bryant, and was achieved through the help and collaboration of AC Lighting, Avolites, Deta Batteries, Autolamps On Line, and Patt Williams Automotive Ltd. The illuminative piece de résistance towards the end of the journey is a ethereal ‘starfield’ which becomes visible as guests are descending the mounting in giddy delight and enveloping darkness. They reach a point where they can see three separate islands of Raasay plus the Scottish mainland ... and a host of ‘stars’ begin twinkling – revealing the massive space and psychologically linking sea, sky and earth. The stars are 100 custom made ‘Intellitorch’ LED torches, spread out along a 22 Km stretch of the coastline and mountain tops of the intervening islands. Each consisting of three 2W white and a single RGB Luxeon LED, each torch unit has its own time clock individually programmed, all of which kick in for a 90 minute sequence that creates different constellations and subtle colour shifts. These were designed and developed by Mike Townsend and Richard Cresswell of TV Elements. Reliability was a key factor …. With some units taking hours to reach, words like ‘low maintenance’ and ‘robust’ take on a new practical significance! They can programme a complete choreographed pattern of lights appearing across all 22 Km of the landscape …. And whilst there’s no direct link between the devices, they appear to work in synch. The starfield effect alone required 6 technicians, 2 boats, 2 quad bikes and two weeks to install. Many of the fixtures located high on mountain tops with no road access would take six hours each to install. “The project has been largely installed with a local Skye crew” says DB, “Arriving on site with little or no technical lighting experience, they have been an amazing asset to the project. Their knowledge of the landscape and familiarity of the severity of the terrain and weather has proved invaluable, and their devotion and enthusiasm has been inspiring.” He’s also “indebted” to three UK production electricians Alberto Felisatti, Darrel Hayhow and Jem White, who brought the project to fruition against all odds, and also to Simon Corder, who babysat whilst DB was recovering from cancer last year. Four years of intensive planning, 700 pages of plans and documentation later and “Probably more analysis and evaluation than a trip to the moon” states DB. Unfolding Landscapes has definitely been his most difficult, ambitious lighting design to date, challenging him on every front – imaginatively technically and personally. After the inordinate amount of work and passion that’s been invested, it’s also a nice touch to know this ground-breaking work has been a huge critical success. |
|
|
|
Avolites Ltd |
|
Date of issue : 19th May 2006. For more press info and photos on Avolites, please call Louise Stickland on +44 (0)1865 202679 or +44 (0)7831 329888 or Email ‘louise@loosplat.com’. Contact Avo direct on +44 (0)20 8965 8522. |
