Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Industrial Resolution brought together visual artists from Microchunk, led by director Todd Graft, to perform custom-designed, multi-media to the soundscape of DJs, including 2 Many DJs, Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Laurent Garnier, Layo, Sasha, and many more.
The focal point of the visually stunning show was the shaped Harkness screen - 48m wide by 18m high over a 25m radius and with a total area of more than 800sq.m - specially constructed for the event to form a spectacular backdrop for the performers.
Installed by UK Rigging and supervised by Harkness Screens, the screen, weighing 360kg, was the largest ever constructed for a single event and took a little over seven hours to secure to the pre-fabricated modular truss frame.
Such a large shaped surface required that Harkness develop a special folding technique using horizontal and vertical pleats, not only to make shipping easier, but to reduce site handling. Harkness sales manager Tony Dilley explains: "This meant that we could keep the amount of screen on the floor to a minimum as it was attached to the huge structure during assembly at ground level and then slowly lifted into position."
Using five Barco FMCHD18 projectors, from Creative Technology, with a combined output of 90,000 ANSI lumens, over 1000 bespoke image clips made for the event and 20,000 embedded clips from public submissions and archive material were projected at resolutions 32 times higher than PAL and eight times higher than HD.
By using mosaics - images within images and subplots within meta-themes - the VJs told the story of Manchester, using the breathtaking cutting-edge digital imagery to create "the ultimate interactive clubbing experience".
(Jim Evans)
