In the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremonies you may have noticed the audience was part of the show and the reason is each of the 70, 799 seats in the stadium for the ceremony was mounted a LED panel.
This is how the led panel look like.
and when all 70, 799 of them light up will be like what you see in the image.
All together the panels created an LED screen with 637,191 pixels! To put that number in perspective your home HDTV showing a Blu-Ray movie uses over 2 million pixels.
The technology and idea solution is designed by Barco LiveDots and Tait Technologies. These two companies had been involved in provide and creating the technology for olympics for the past few years and i lucky enough to able to find some of the useful source about the technology they created.
Before i start to put in some of my personal thought about the interactivity of the technology and come personal i will like to share what do the creator think when they are creating this huge piece of art.
In the video, we are able to collect some information from the designer, which notes that the small pixel is able help on create the narration and also make the audience/crowds feel like they are apart of the show.
The creative director, Will Case at Crystal CD said, “The audience literally became part of the the action.”
When i was watching the video i thought that the crowds are the one the control the led light to create enhance the narrative of the story and performance during the opening ceremony. And i am still very impress by the technology.
Although the crowd is not really interacting with the led light. But let put some of my personal thought and condition, if there is just the LED light panel without the crowd will the effect be so amazing. For my opinion i think it will end up just like a normal huge giant led screen. There is a reason why the designer want to put the LED panel in between of every seat. base on my personal opinion by placing the led panel in between of every seat is able to create an illusion like the crowds are controlling/interacting with the light and it some how feel like the card turning backdrop (the human LED screen video below) where the crowd is really interactive with the card.
The are a lot of different kind of interaction by using all different type of human senses and visual is and participating in the opening ceremony is considering as a kind of interaction.
Focusing on the Technology
But now let me use some learned theories in contextual study to analyse this awesome piece of art/technology. When come to analysis an object, semiotics is one of the best theory to make thing even clearer.
Denotation: LED Light Panel, Pixel, a lot of tiny light bulbs.
Connotation: A Giant Screen, World largest display, a tool to enhance the performance, A narrative story.
Myth: An evolution of card-turning backdrop.
This is what i means card turning backdrop
Denotation sign when
Signified:Led Panel Giant screen
Signifier: the signal that are send to led from the console
connotation sign when
Signified : is the narrative of the story
Signifier: Led Panel Giant screen
After analysing the led panel it remind me one of the the theory that i highlight in my literature review from Inventing the medium by Janet H. Murray. In the book there is a chapter mentioning Design as Framing and Reframing. Explain in more simple way, we all how toaster are been invented/designed by framing out some of the problem, like how to mass it less , easier to get the toast out , more and bigger slots, a designer brand toaster, we are able to refine it into a better toaster.
This theory is able to assign to the led panel. The led panel will be the all the turning card. And understand framing out the problem like turning card need more human power and to have perfect team work and practice to make it sync perfectly. Then refine by inventing a new medium to solve the problem and provide better solution and also more possibilities.
References
barco.com, (2014). Barco LiveDots wows the world during London Olympics 2012. [online] Available at: http://www.barco.com/~/media/Downloads/Application%20Notes/2013/Olympics%20case%20story%20pdf.pdf [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
CG, C. (2012). Olympic Opening Ceremony - London 2012. [online] Vimeo. Available at: http://vimeo.com/46687821 [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
Design27.com, (2014). London Lights Up the Olympic 2012 Opening Ceremony | Design 27. [online] Available at: http://www.design27.com/london-lights-up-the-olympic-2012-opening-ceremony/ [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
Mail Online, (2011). North Korea’s amazing mass games performed by over 100,000 people seen up close for the first time. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066807/North-Koreas-mass-games-performed-100k-people-pictured-close-time.html [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
Murray, J. (2012). Inventing the medium. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
TripleWide Media, (2012). Technology behind London Olympics Opening Ceremonies. [online] Available at: http://www.triplewidemedia.com/2012/07/the-technology-behind-the-london-olympics-opening-ceremonies/ [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
Uvm.edu, (2014). Definitions of Semiotic Terms. [online] Available at: http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/semiotics_and_ads/terminology.html [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
YouTube, (2014). The human "LED" screen @ Arirang Mass Games North Korea. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kmxTy5L7Rc [Accessed 3 Dec. 2014].
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