RIBBONS

Medium: custom fabricated aluminum lightboxes Location: Atlanta, Georgia Dimensions : varies between 4’ - 50’ approx. Project budget: $12M Installation: Summer 2024

Design from concept through to installation of a bespoke programmable lighting system to wrap around an entire black box show space. The ribbons were first massed in Rhino, before being imported into Revit for advanced clash detection and coordination. Through a collaborative process with the fabricators at ID3, the lighting designers at NYX design, and the integration team at Clearwing, we developed a typical sectional detail for an aluminum lightbox with a light diffusing fabric membrane wrap.

The entirety of the lighting inside these ribbons was created as a custom low-resolution screen by hand soldering a network of thousands of individual pixels of LED pixel tape. These were then mapped and programmed to respond to timecode cues from the show control system, using both projected video content and generative patterns and movement as starting points for the flowing lighting effect which guided the audience’s attention throughout the show.

Coordinating the build involved designing a virtually invisible bracket system to make the ribbons appear to hover off the wall surface, with back-facing light strips helping to sell that effect.

The ribbons were arranged around show action elements including a projection-mapped model of Downtown Atlanta, with miniature buildings which rise and fall during the course of the show.