Public Lab Research note


Live from the Pfizer warehouse

by oscarbrett | September 04, 2012 16:55 04 Sep 16:55 | #3634 | #3634

PLOTS was invited to create an installation for this years "Stranded" rave; the "weird science" party was organized by Brooklyn based party team Winkle + Baltik. It had been described as the "east coast burning man".

Our installation was designed around the idea of projecting the dance floor space at other points in the party, as well on the internet.

We used car straps, pool noodles and carabiners to attach a network of nylon laundry lines to large columns in the Pfizer loading dock (which would later become the dance floor).–– The ropes would serve as a track for the balloon + camera to follow back and forth across the dance floor.

The nylon rope network terminated at a catwalk on the far end of the dance floor. We used a piece of PVC tubing threaded on the rope as the attachment point to which we would secure the balloon, the camera, as well as a long loop of very thin 40lbs test Spectra line (used to guide the satellite back and forth on the dance floor).

The balloon was made out of 2mm thick reflective silver mylar. We cut a series of triangles and squares out of the 100 x 4 ft mylar roll using a found wooden board, as a straight edge, and a razor.

We constructed a large 8 x 8 x 3 ft pyramid using the pieces. The pyramid's shape were reinforced by taping very long and thin animal balloons into the edges of the structure.–– We then filled the mylar pyramid with (close to 160) 12" helium filled party balloon. A 3' dacron string was attached from the center of the base of the pyramid to it point, in order to ensure the balloon shape would not bow out too much due to the lift of the 12" helium balloons.

A 4G enabled android phone was attached to the PVC tubing on the nylon rope and the dance floor was steamed live over Ustream to the web.


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1 Comments

This is a great note, thanks for posting! With your experience in both indoor and outdoor aerial video streaming during large events, what have you learned that you can share with us?

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