Here’s A Very Clever Use Of Those LED Light Wand Thingies, For Generative Art
October 27, 2021 by Dave Haynes
I have hugely mixed feelings about those madly spinning LED light wand thingies that always seem to attract attention at trade shows.
I think they’re gimmicks with short-term stopping power. I worry about any electronics in busy spaces that has moving parts, and these things spin like fans. And I dislike how they’re called holograms, when they’re not.
On the other hand, with the right application they can be quite compelling. I have recent work for product demos for air cleaners and ambient visuals of virtual birds in the outdoor areas of restaurants. Now there’s a really nice use of the tech in an art installation in St. Petersburg – five of the units spinning out real-time, data-driven visuals based on generative audio.
I’ll quote David Title of New York’s Bravo Media on his impressions:
I love two things in particular about this. 1) It looks totally awesome and 2) Instead of trying to call it a “hologram” it is correctly described as “five LED fan screens” which is exactly what it is! And that doesn’t make it one ounce less cool.
Title is part of a panel I am running tomorrow morning that is all about the use and abuse of technology terms like hologram. It is both live and virtual at InfoComm. All of the participants will be Zooming in, but the session will also be shown on the main stage on the exhibit hall floor.
TORTURED TERMINOLOGY
Should Pro AV Care About Misleading and Misappropriated Marketing Terms? A DSF Coffee and Conversation Debate.
Details here: https://www.infocommshow.org/exhibit-hall/technology-innovation-stage
It should be a great session, with Chris Riegel from STRATACACHE, Kim Sarubbi from IoTecha, David Nussbaum of PORTL, and Title. Yes, there are five people and three of them are Daves.
That’s probably the coolest use of LED fans I’ve seen.