Stage Lighting Services Featured Projects
Prototype Curtain of Light by Simon Fenoulhet
Working with Simon Fenoulhet, Stage Lighting Services Ltd successfully helped in creating a prototype 9 metre long curtain of light. Working with our electronics expert Steve Toozer we were able to help in making up 448 x 2 metre lengths of electro-luminescent wire sleeved with coloured drinking straws.
"This project started with a small idea that just grew and grew. Having bought some Electro-luminescent wire to play with and discovered just how attractive it was, it was a short step to imagine using a larger quantity and the creative possibilities of controlling its brightness, especially when it was threaded with brightly coloured straws. It was at this point that I was introduced to DMX lighting control and pixel mapping software, Catalyst. Catalyst offered me a very intuitive way of using video footage as a way of controlling the brightness of the wires in relation to the brightness of the individual pixels.
This means that I could edit video clips to achieve moving areas of light and dark across the surface of a network of E-L wires, giving the impression that there's a living, moving process taking place. Once the idea was born and the solution found, the scale became the next decision. I wanted it to be larger than life, big enough to feel immersed in so I planned it as a curtain some 9 metres long, 2 metres high and suspended about 40cm above the floor.
After weeks of putting the components together, we finally set the Curtain of Light up in the Fine Art department of the University of Wales, Newport with the help of the first and second year students. After a few teething troubles, we had it working perfectly but I quickly discovered that the work responded best to slower footage, as whatever movement you see on the computer screen is immediately translated onto a 9 metre canvas and appears to move very quickly. Finding source material is now the new challenge, using footage of natural movement such as scudding clouds, ripples in water or light coming through trees and slowing it down to create sweeping areas of light and dark.
Special thanks must go to Steve Toozer of Stage Lighting Services for helping me to devise and construct the work. Also, Gareth Jeanne of Stage Sound Services who guided me through Catalyst and revealed its creative possibilities.
Simon Fenoulhet"
