Watch: A Giant Butterfly With LED Wings
September 26, 2024 by Dave Haynes
This is not what I’d call digital signage, bur it is using LED to offer up something that is the definition of experiential – a giant butterfly with some 39,000 LEDs that flaps its wings as people below use an oversized porch swing.
The 26 x 14 foot butterfly is 15 feet above the ground. Speakers disguised as giant flower pots play classical and classic pop music, and the visuals are sync’d to the music.
The structure of the butterfly is made from aluminum tubing, with LED strips radiate out from the spine.
It was put together for Burning Man, a hard-to-describe counterculture arts and lifestyle festival held annually for several days out in the desert in the US southwest. Never been. Don’t wanna go.
That said, it is gorgeous and would be great, full-time public art somewhere – ideally in a controlled space like an airport terminal.
It was put together by Oakland, CA-based artist Christopher Schardt, who has his own company LED Labs. It may have been for the 2023 Burning Man, made somewhat famous by what happened when heavy rains created a seas of mud in the desert.
Oh……wow….. Reminds me of the 70s.