Bits from Expo I
The Sub-Saharan Africa pavilion, actually an entire building that housed several countries, put on an impressive out-door show, everyday.
The entire outside wall was covered by a mosaic of 15cm square plaques. These pieces were decorated with translucent silvery vinyl and were hung from the top, as if sequins, so that they would sway with the wind creating a very convincing, and soothing, building-sized water rippling effect.
At night, though, the thing would burst into light and serve as a gigantic screen, in which the plaques acted as black-and-white pixels, each powered by a set of 4 white LEDs. Of course images could only be perceived from a relatively large distance and had a CGA-comparable pixel resolution.
Content featured a long and exciting sequence of animations and real video, intended to pass some water-related awareness message, according to those who designed it.
(Allow me to say that in front of a sun-bright thousand LEDs, environmental awareness -or any kind of awareness, for that matter- isn’t the first thing that pops into your mind. Nothing really pops into your mind. You just feel amazed, kind of happy, physically overwhelmed, and for those in the mood, a pure technological bliss.)
Video here.
Apparently, design and concept (not sure about technology) were the works of German Atelier Brueckner. Project and construction from Swiss Nussli. Both with powerful portfolios.
Tags: 2008, expo, interactivity, YDreams, zaragoza
