Much like its natural counterpart, Aurora Australis is a joyous celebration of light and as part of Vivid Sydney brings the historic Rocks to life through a layering of ambience, colour and movement.
Aurora Australis harnesses the changing winds to create an ethereal kaleidoscope of light against the night sky. Motion sensors determine the movement of Vivid Sydney crowds, which influences the progression of lights projected onto fabric sails suspended from above. Vertical light beams allow you to play with the intensity of the Aurora storm – if you ‘break’ the beam, a sequence of new, dynamic light patterns and effects explode into space.
Aurora Australis was designed by the Beam Collective: Bettina Easton, Grace Tham, Colin Shum, Jonas Olander and Robert Easton. As a multicultural, cross?disciplinary collective, they are drawn together by a synergy between the fields of lighting, design and engineering. Together, they aim to push the boundaries of innovation to create truly memorable experiences of interactive light, sound and design.
The lighting is supplied by three Martin MAC700 and seven MAC301’s with a Martin M2GO chosen for control.
“The M2GO has been a great choice for our Vivid project,” said Rob Easton. “Being such a small form factor makes it easy to house in the tiny space available to us and I could see this desk being very useful on those corporate shows where space in the Op’s area is very limited.
The ability to change the DMX outputs to inputs has allowed the team to control the MAC700 cues from heat sensors via a Dynet system.
The system also cues the MAC strike and shutdown sequences although this can be done via the MX manager supplied with the desk.
“Being a Hog user from way back, I find the software intuitive and Version 3 seems to be rock solid with a very slick GUI,” commented Rob. “Show Technology supplied the superb ELO touch screen but if you’re on a budget the system can be used with a standard screen and mouse without slowing programming too much.
“The desk comes with a hard cover but I could see it packing very easily into a Pelican case with a monitor for light to medium touring work.”
