Gizmodo
Space Invaders 2008 is an art installation with 176 lamps (each with its own lampshade style) hung in a 1,600 feet-square curtain. They're all wired up to a system with a camera, turning them into a low-res video display that reacts dramatically to passers-by, as you can see above, or to music, as you can see after the jump.
As well as surprising nearby walkers, the installation can also be hooked up to an audio source, turning it into one mahoosive music visualizer, and reminding us of the light curtains U2 had on stage during the Vertigo tour.
Rainer Kehres, Sebastian Hungerer and Friedemann Wolpert designed and built the display, and if you're in Karlsruhe, Germany, you can see it at the ZKM Center for Art & Media until February 13. [Commonlights via Technabob]
Comments
At about 1:40 I was just listening to the song.
Nothing against the display, I just haven't heard that one in a while.
It looks like a Bejeweled game where the screen shimmers but the bastards just won't FLIP!!
Very pretty actually, but there's only so much you can do outside of varying levels unless you mod multiple LEDS into the lamps of course.
Initially I thought this was so lame until the SCALE of this exhibit dawned on me, and then I started noticing how the replacement of expected digital LEDs in this kind of visualizer context with old-fashioned analog lamp components... WOW
The little vids are coo but just like real music and visual art are best experienced live... I hope this exhibit tours to north America.
Michael Jackson? WTF!
Wow that thing is quite large, but I would like to see more video of the live event. I did find this short clip as a related video on youtube. This is going on the art blog for sure. NICE!
impressive, but can it play DOOM?
Not the greatest selection of music, I don't think MJ has been relevant for about 10 years.
MJ is always relevant.
HA! This reminded me of the "Computers" we used to make back in the middle 70's. Take a piece of cardboard (the same size as the picture tube on your color TV) and punch a grid of holes in it with a sharp pencil. Take the "color" control on the TV and crank it all the way to the right, tape on the "computer" screen. Now get really stoned and watch it for several hours.
Cool. I'm sure it makes a great music visualizer, but if you look carefully the second video isn't a music visualisation, it's the video to Scream. Presumably chosen because it's very high contrast black and white.
De-focus your eyes and you can make out MJ & Janet dancing. If you're still not convinced, open up the Scream video on Youtube, and watch the two side by side.
When the man runs across you get a better perspective of how huge it is, thou it is stupid
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