The Australian Government appointed Melbourne-based firm Think!OTS to design, construct and maintain the Australian pavilion. Think!OTS joined forces with the major Japanese exhibition company Delphys Inc, which has been designing and building pavilions stretching back to the World Expo held in Osaka in 1970. Leading indigenous design firm Balarinji is also part of the Think!OTS team. Phil Lethlean was appointed as lighting designer for the Australian pavilion with Lightmoves supplying most of the lighting equipment.
The pavilion provides a journey in three acts starting with an entrance foyer which houses a Martin Mania fixture that projects the word 'Eternity', in Japanese. "The Manias are fantastic for this type of work. We just whipped out the standard gobos, played with the lenses a bit and inserted our own gobos. It gives us an animated feel," says Lethlean. "We also bypassed all the transformers on them so that we could dim them bearing in mind everything is 100 volts in Japan. It works really well." In fact, the Australian pavilion is saturated by Martin Manias - DC1s and DC2s - 32 in total, all supplied by Lightmoves through Martin's Australian distributor, Show Technology.
Act One takes visitors back 65,000 years to a time when Australia was populated by its indigenous peoples alone, through the depiction of Australia's unique environment and indigenous culture and traditions. Visitors experience the natural elements - lightning, fire and rain - and learn about the importance of nature's cleansing and rejuvenating qualities. Six Martin Mania DC2s fade up and down with custom-made gobos replacing the standard fire gobos. A lot of the artwork for the new Mania gobos was done by the design firm Balarinji including stylized fire and rain, plus a snake.
"We also took out the double lens in some of them, leaving just a single lens, and focused them onto the Piezo glass that encases the display," explained Lethlean. "As we had put in our own transformers they could fade up and down; all of the motors run of normal mains with just the lamp transformer running separately."
Act Two projects a dynamic and positive image of contemporary Australia through the cutting edge technology used in the pavilion's Data Forest. Some 80 plasma screens form "data totems" rising from the floor of the pavilion - a fascinating combination of Australia's indigenous past and technologically advanced present. The screens are situated on two faces of the triangular totems and the perimeter of the room has a woven white acrylic finish which Lethlean has lit with 24 Selecon Hue cyc lights hung from above. The white finish also reflects a lot of color from the screens.
Act Three introduces guests to the future through the pavilion mascot - the platypus. Most of the Martin Manias are located here - Mania DC1s - representing a river; the white walkway acts as an ideal projection surface for the ceiling-mounted Manias which project a watery effect along the path. "It flows at the right speed and there is very little shadow cast from the people," said Lethlean. "It really looks like a swirling stream."
Other lighting includes sixty Par 16s on droplets in the ceiling which is made of weld mesh and pressed perforated aluminum leaves through which the lights shine on a flicker chase. Behind the trees are a few 18W fluorescents to wash the wall. Control was LSC two-phase racks built especially for the project.
(Lee Baldoc
