Lawrence Ryan of Eagle Eye Studios was tasked with designing and programming a show control interface for the beautiful fountain in Delhi known as the Fountain of Oneness.
The idea behind this unique architectural structure originates from the Guru himself as a symbol of people from different religions, cultures and languages coming together in one place. The structure is made up of adults and children holding hands in a circular formation, so large that the audience can walk around or through the fountain.
As a centrepiece, a huge sphere represents the world, denoting worldwide unity. Great care has gone into making it structurally sound, with the key focus being the huge weight of the structure and strong winds in the area of Delhi. Situated inside a huge pool area with many water fountains, lighting effects add a further unique dimension to the frequent music shows.
As lighting designer, Lawrence Ryan envisioned a full interface for the operators to easily test and manually run all the lighting and fountains in the venue, while also choreographing an entire show using Medialon record DMX features and a Jands Vista lighting controller. A composed piece of music incorporating the Guru talking, with beautiful vocal sections, and the deployment of 12 SGM G-Spot moving heads offer the feeling of spirituality through sound and light.
"Initially I was looking for standard intelligent lighting effects from moving head units, but I ended up with something really quite special and was truly impressed with the colours and movement of the units," says Lawrence Ryan.
The choice had been unambiguous once the IP65 all-weather moving head was presented. "SGM had just launched the product and I was the first to get delivery of these very special units," the designer continues. Besides the IP rating, finding a fixture based on LED technology has its clear benefits: "The LED output moves us away from the conventional lamp and ballast set-up which hopefully will give a much better life span for the units."
The 12 G-Spots are placed on the edge of the water feature. With a square pool area segmented into four areas, three units are located at the edge of each area, providing a broad spectrum of bright colours across the fountain.
It was important for Lawrence Ryan not to make this look like a regular show. The choreography itself resembles a cross between architectural lighting and effect lighting, with attention to its statement of the 'oneness'. "For a start the audience can actually walk through the structure and around the area, and we had to keep this in mind when programming. The show can be watched from many vantage points, giving the audience excellent repeat value and allowing them to see other effects which were not visible from positions previously," he explains.
As a tourist attraction and a sanctuary for people from all walks of life, this fountain appeals to a large number of visitors. It offers three shows each night during religion celebrations and two to three shows every hour from Thursday to Sunday. Already the designer has been commissioned to design and programme another show later this year as this initial production has been a huge success.
Deployment came easily to Lawrence Ryan, who describes the G-Spots as "very easy to set up and simple to upgrade with firmware via DMX." However, he remains unequivocal about the best feature of the G-Spot: "I was totally blown away with the colour output," he says.
Lawrence Ryan is a busy man; having just finished the Singapore Sentosa night time spectacular, The Wings Of Time, he is preparing for three installs in China including "something really special at the Great Wall of China". And he confidently predicts a bright future ahead for the G-Spot: "All up and coming installat
