The Brief

Replicate the background from Justin Timberlake’s ‘Rock your Body’ music video!

The Installation

The arched ceiling and walls were lined with Philips Color Kinetics’ iColor Flex SL, a LED-based strand of light that comprises 50 individually controllable RGB nodes. The result was an all-encompassing low-resolution video display screen that wraps around the entire room, enveloping club goers in moving light. The ‘Light Box’ room has since been used in music videos by popular dubstep artists, Nero and Katy B. To achieve the desired pixel resolution, the LED nodes were spaced 4in apart, and over 50,000 holes were drilled to accommodate a total of 12,672 LED nodes, and corresponding wiring. The nodes had to be spaced in increments small enough to produce decent resolution and the designers determined that 48 prefabricated panels were required; each lined with iColor Flex SL strings that were then sandwiched between two plywood sheets. When complete, the panels were lifted into place and each string was connected back to the drivers based in the control room, using an 18-way multi-core cable.

Have a look at the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSVHoHyErBQ

The Challenges

The first major challenge was the spacing between nodes, balancing the budget with the need for a dense enough arrangement to trick the eye into seeing a coherent picture – despite the arch’s restricted headroom. The second challenge was fitting everything perfectly to align and be geometrically correct to the curved walls of the railway arch.