There is a new program on the Playa called C.O.R.E. or the Circle of Regional Effigies. The East Bay Regional’s installation this year is First Home. “First Home” design is inspired by contemplating life in the East Bay region and the history embedded in the landscape. Grass huts were the earliest human buildings. They could be rolled up and taken with the family group as they moved from place to place. They often approximated a Fibonacci sequence, a spiral found abundantly in nature, from the pattern of seeds in a sunflower to the cloud formation of a hurricane. First Home is a structure built into that spiral, which climbs higher and higher, to a column that points skyward, creating a guidepost for our own navigation and suggesting that others might find it (and us). It is a dance, marking our passage and invoking connections to the hoped for, the unseen. And, as is our very nature, it is temporary – here for a week, then gone in a moment of heat and smoke.
Dan Swain says:
The light boxes were conceived from the beginning to provide interior lighting for first home both to light the interior in interesting ways and to shine out through the thatchy , recycled wood siding of the structure at night. I am using the pro controller with a PC interface so that we can use a video I am producing and the real time play feature to coordinate the lights and a sound scape being scored by one of our members. The light scheme is going to be based on elemental themes so fire, water, wind, earth. The source video is of slow motion fire, whales breaching, wind in a field of wheat, a long pan through a coral reef that gives the lights amazing colors and movement. I will also blend in some rainbow patterns but even those are pretty unique when seen through the cube diffusers. I have been calling them LED lanterns but the group has called them variously Blinkie Boxes and Psychedelic Sugar Cubes. Both good ideas.
I included the two drawings (links below) I used to make the LED modules and to order the frosted blocks from TAP Plastics. Those show some of the specific dimensions that I developed. The base of each cube is made from ½” birch plywood and the LED’s themselves are mounted in a square of 1/8” birch plywood drilled out with 25 holes at 15/32” in diameter to press each pixel into. At first, the module squares were going to be larger, something like 10” x 10” to allow for the wires on the square base pixels to bend but I found by laying the pixels out at a 45 degree angle to each other and in a herringbone pattern, I could put them closer together and get a denser light source. I used 1” nylon stand offs to mount the module to the base to allow for the wires for the pixels beneath. You should be able to see all that in the video.
Light Box Revised LED ModuleLayout
Benny, Karen and the Elves
photo: Leori Gill
