people from various disciplines to make this structure not only workable in
a live environment, but also safe,” stated Rush.
Talking through some of the technical challenges at play was Technical
Production Manager, Dorian Cameron-Marlow commented: “One of the
first barriers we had to look at was that the crane rotates continually. So
straight off the bat we had the issue that we couldn’t run cable up the
structure.” The solution was a fairly rudimental one: a series of slip rings.
“But the big issue was that slip rings are not designed to transmit data,” he
commented. “We developed a fibre-optic system, using a slip ring principle,
so we continually pass data up the structure to the lighting rig on the arm
of the crane. This tech doesn’t exist in any other sector and we spoke to
various industries including experts in robotics to make this a possibility.”
As well as bringing in experts from the cutting edge of their fields,
Rush chuckled that they even brought a few out of retirement. “We have
a few guys who worked on the crane for years to come in as they had the
greatest knowledge of the structures,” he said. “It was great to have them
collaborate with these young tech companies. Between this collaboration
we were able to create some really strong safety protocols which will help
us out in future years.”
Cameron-Marlow added: “Our understanding of health and safety is
one of our biggest strengths as a company. We work outside the realms
of other live events and often there is no legislation. We’ve found we often
lead the way in helping bring about new legislation to continue to make the
grander avant-garde events as safe as possible.”
PROJECTION
From the inception of this year’s design, one element the team wanted to
enhance was projection mapping. “There was projection with the Spider
during the Metamorphosis show, but we were always limited with what
we could do due to the structure,” stated Cole. “With the crane in place we
found a face to include some kind of mapping, and with the whole show
being called Pangea, the idea of a globe made sense.”
Using the remanence of a militar y satellite dish, below the main body
of the crane was a large sphere that was used as a projection surface
throughout the performance. “We worked with some guys from Astral
Projekt and Heckler to produce content revolving around planets,” said
Cole. “They produced evolving content for the three days and collaborating
with various artists.”
Technical production specialist CPL, having worked with the Arcadia
team on previous occasions, was brought in to provide the projection
infrastructure for the event. CPL supplied six Barco UDX-4K32 projectors
with fibre-optic signal and control infrastructure for 360° projections
that were integral to the show based around the magnificent 140-tonne
centrepiece of Pangea.
The projectors were positioned on six 10m-high purpose-built towers
located 40m away from the radar dome in weatherised hides. All the video
content for the Pangea shows was created by Joe Crossley from digital art
collective Astral Projekt alongside Heckler and programmed into Arcadia’s
own Avolites AI media ser ver by Ciaran Abrams. CPL also supplied an arrayGLASTONBURY