latest news headlines
Avolites and Robe matter in London
Dave Parry of Most Technical specified three Avolites consoles for control and Robe moving lights throughout for his spectacularly innovative visual and sonic concept at the new 2500 capacity London superclub, ‘matter'.
Parry was asked onboard by matter owners and underground music gurus Keith Reilly and Cameron Leslie with whom he's worked on several previous projects. He collaborated closely with architects and interior designers William Russell and Sarah Adams of Pentagram who created an edgy neo industrial aesthetic for the venue which is inside the O2 in Greenwich.
Its neutral colouration and cool concrete, stone and opaque metal surfaces all lent themselves ideally to colour changing LED illumination, and the basis of Parry's lighting scheme is closely related to colour, sonic and rhythmic psychologies that induce trance and hypnotic states in humans, allowing them to attain maximum enjoyment from music and the surrounding environment.
Central to the whole matter audio-visual experience is full integration of all mediums - lighting, sound and video - and the ability to create large cross-medial effects like sending waves of colour, movement and music around each of matter's three main spaces.
Literally thousands of LED lightsources - primarily from the Philips SSL range including several kilometres of iColor Flex product - are embedded in various architectural features around the venue like walls, pillars and balconies, plus corridors, stairwells, toilets and other public spaces and circulation areas.
All these architectural LED sources are driven from the Avolites Diamond 4 in the main room. Using a Timax 3D audio processing system, sound can also be mapped and moved - triggered via the lighting cues - around the room in synch with lighting and projection, bringing integration to a new level.
The gently curved main room has a stage and dancefloor and a second level balcony running 270 degrees around the space.
Parry specified an Avolites Diamond 4 Vision console to be at the centre of the control system, which drives all the stage and dancefloor lighting, plus all the wall washing LED sources in the area.
The video running to 12 Sanyo projectors, all fitted with custom scanning mirrors, is fed via two of Pixel Addict's amazing new hot rodded Addict digital media servers, also triggered from the D4.
It is the first time a lighting console has been used to control all these immersive technical elements in one room.
For moving lights, Parry chose eight Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs and six ColorSpot 575E ATs to light the stage and dancefloor. "I wanted something reliable and dynamic, I know the people at Robe, and many others I consulted recommended the brand to me" he says, adding that the 575s were ideal for being rigged over the stage because of their compact size.
Other lighting includes eight strobes ensconced in the bespoke 75,000 Watt pulsating BodyKinetic dancefloor which is another unique matter feature, eight ETC Source Fours, 24 PARs and four Robe 2Ÿ96 LEDBlinders, all patched through 96 channels of Avolites ART2000i installation dimmers.
"The ART dimmers were a complete no brainer," states Parry. When it came to specifying a console for the main room he states: "I needed something powerful and versatile enough to deal with all the elements we wanted to control from one user interface. It had to be quick and easy to use patch and programme and have innate buskability as it's a club environment and so essential for any lighting operator to be able to go with the flow of the rhythm and vibes."
The small intimate and darker matter 3 space features a long corridor with a dancefloor at the end. It has 16 large plasma screens in the roof and 12 custom LED floor panels, and the rest is lit entirely with CK iFlex linked into Resolume 3 AV software along with a selection of camera feeds.
The moving lights are eight Robe Scan 250 XTs, hung in the ceiling over the dancefloor and there are 16 Kam LED bars, which are also linked to the plasmas and all the LED architectural lighting in the area, with everything linked back to the Avo Pearl Expert lighting console.
The Robe Scanners were chosen for their incredible speed, small size, brightness and features. "We needed something small to emphasise the clubbyness of the dancefloor," elucidates Parry.
The console was chosen as a compact and powerful control solution for this space, and the Pearl Expert was perfect for the job. All encompassing environmental colour effects can be created and moved around the area producing a fully mobile immersive visual effect.
Room 2 is a bit darker and more discreet in feel than the other areas, again with a massive emphasis on colour changing LED wall and alcove washing architectural lightsources - a mix of Phillips SSL iColors, iCoves and iColor Flex units - plus 24 Kam 800S LED bars in the ceiling.
The only other lighting fixtures are four Robe Scan 575 XT's, once again chosen for their speed and brightness, and eight Robe REDWash 2Ÿ36 LED wash lights, picked to fit in with the whole LED texturing of the venue.
Everything in matter 3 is controlled from an Avo Pearl Tiger. Again this was the ideal sized console for the job, with enough DMX channels to control all the LED environmental lightsources, which, when combined can create some incredible mind-bending 360 degree colour sweeps around the room.
The Tiger also triggers another Addict server running video into two Sanyo projectors in the toilets. Each individual tile on the WC walls has been mapped so individual pictures can be projected onto all of them for some truly trippy effects that make visiting the toilet a serious matter and essential chapter in any evening's experience there!
21st October 2008
HEADLINES
news archive
search stories
FOOTNOTE: Select the news type you require in the red band above; this will enable you to see the current news stories from that section
© 1999 - 2012 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories
