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Hard Rock for Projected Image Digital

Digital media specialists Projected Image Digital has supplied the Hard Rock Café London with a bespoke Element Labs VersaTILE installation for their newly refurbished Basement Bar.

Hard Rock Café London, the first and most famous venue of the landmark brand, has just reopened after extensive renovation. Its classically ‘cool’ interior was designed by Paula Reason of Cadmium Design, the London-based designers who are involved in creating many of the Hard Rock Café interiors worldwide.

Reason wanted a central light feature in the bar to continue an ongoing theme of using light to interact ‘live’ with the people within specific Hard Rock spaces. This had been started at previous Hard Rock projects and has taken many different formats. However, for the new-look London venue, she wanted something completely different.

Aware of PID and the VersaTILE product, Reason contacted Projected Image Digital for a demo. Apart from the amazing liquid effects made possible, there was also an obvious connection in using a stage lighting technology product and the Hard Rock theme.

Reason wanted the entire back of the bar area to be covered top to bottom in VersaTILES, complete with three different sized screens (one plasma and two TFTs) embedded into the surface. She originated a 350 pixel design, measuring 4 metres long by 1 metre high, with each pixel (i.e. VersaTILE) required to measure 10 x 10 centimetres. Each of the special sized tiles is edge lit with 18 LEDs, six red, six green and six blue.

Video inputs are fed into the ‘VersaWall’ via an Element Labs C1 controller, specified by PID as a simple to use and operate solution for all types of fixed installation. It has a Compact Flash card memory and can store up to 256 individual patterns.

For content, Reason looked through a series of video clips available from Beacon and Amorphous collections, from which she selected about 12 sequences. PID’s Rob Fowler then programmed these into the C1 using Element Labs’ Rastermapper software.

“We are very proud to have been involved in the new-look Hard Rock Cafe, and whilst the project happened so fast it is now rewarding that Paula’s design just looks fabulous – creating a truly immersive environment to the Basement Bar,” said David March, managing director of Projected Image Digital.

PID also undertook the installation themselves as it was such a precision job and one of the most challenging aspects of the project. Lead time was exceptionally tight as the refurbishment was already underway by the time Cadmium decided to go with VersaTILE for the light art element of the project.

Each strip of VersaTILES had to be individually fixed into a very tight space and fitted neatly around the screens and also around 10 mm thick glass shelves protruding from the rear surface.

The working conditions were galvanising – it was effectively a 24/7 building site crawling with contractors jostling for space as everyone raced to get finished for opening night.

The resulting VersaWall is impressive. The trippy, kaleidoscopic waves of colour and movement roll up to the screens and around the other side, and anyone entering the bar is immediately drawn by its mesmeric visual impact. The installation is also a unique showcase for the integration of stage and AV technology.

The effects of light reflecting and refracting through the bottles lined up on the bar and shelves is amazing, and Reason comments: “The quality of the light produced by the VersaTILES is really rich and beautiful – they give exactly the effect and ambience I envisioned.”

On working with PID, she says: “They are absolutely brilliant. We had a very interactive working relationship, and PID’s input was invaluable in working out how to achieve the design effects I wanted.”

http://www.projectedimagedigital.com

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Hard Rock for Projected Image Digital

27th October 2005

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