Kling-Force on the walkway at Zaventem Airport
- Details
This is a collaboration with lighting and visual designer Koert Vermeulen of creative agency ACTLD.
The power and flexibility of ArKaos’s Kling-Net control protocol and Kling-Force LED interfaces have been harnessed to bring dynamic control to a 30,000 pixel video and kinetic sculpture which runs above the main travellator leading from the jetway to the baggage reclaim hall.
ACTLD was commissioned by Toerisme Vlaanderen (Flanders Tourism) to design, specify and supervise the production. For the installation, integrators Create won a public tender to deliver the project based on ACTLD’s specifications.
ArKaos and ACTLD have partnered on several previous projects, and ArKaos managing director Agnes Wojewoda comments, “We work with a number of production companies and designers and were very happy to co-operate with Koert again on such an imaginative installation. His pioneering work in the creative media field really pushes our technologies and these are the challenges we love.”
The animated installation is 100m long and a combination of low and medium resolution LED strips and panoramic video panels in the ceiling, fitted above a special kinetic fabric.
A loop of content runs on the display 24-7 in this tough and demanding environment, giving all passengers arriving into the main International Terminal ideas and a glimpse of what they can expect and do in the region as they walk through to get their bags. Literal content appearing on the main video panel displays is processed into more abstract animations running through the length of the installation, retaining the same colour, tonality and continuity as people pass along the travellator.
Control, was the most galvanising and brain-teasing aspect of the project. Around 7000 pixels long by 700 wide, utilising traditional DMX was not a viable option, something altogether more “neat, agile and cost-efficient” was needed explained Koert.
The solution utilises Kling-Net running via the Kling-Force LED interfaces which have been specifically designed as a straightforward plug-and-play solution for running data to all types of LED strips, and will work with most major and popular LED strip products currently on the market.
The project was managed for ArKaos by the Brussels based company’s operations manager, Benjamin Bauwens.
The video server was supplied by Create and is running ArKaos’ MediaMaster5 software.
Around 24m people travelled through Zaventem airport in 2017 and it is one of the most important global hubs and gateways in the west of Europe for air travel worldwide.
(Jim Evans)
