Programming and Development:
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Conroy Badger, Chong Zhang, Will Bauer, Jennifer Laughlin, Emilio López-Galiacho, Alejandro Conty Vidal, Ana Parga, Maria Parga.

Vectorial Elevation is a large-scale interactive installation that transformed Lyon’s historic city center using robotic searchlights controlled over a 3D environment on the Internet. Between December 3 and 10, 2003, visitors to the project web site at www.alzado.net could design ephemeral light sculptures over Place Bellecour. The sculptures, made by 18 xenon searchlights, located around this site, could be seen from a 15-mile radius and were sequentially rendered as they arrived over the Net. The Web site featured a 3D-Java interface that allowed participants to make a vectorial design over the city and virtually see it from any point of view. The online 3D world was made with accurate models and textures of the city and the searchlights were calibrated with a GPS tracker so that the virtual and the real lights matched perfectly. When the project server in Lyon received a submission, it was numbered and entered into a queue. Every twelve seconds the searchlights would automatically orient themselves and four webcams would take pictures to document a participant’s design. The live broadcast from the four video cameras were placed at the Basilica, Hôtel Dieu, Royal Lyon Hotel and the Rectangle. The system then made a web page documenting each design and wrote an email to the participant when it was done; these pages can be visited in the design archive section.

Credits:

This version of “Vectorial Elevation” was commissioned by the Fête des Lumières in Lyon, France and is sponsored by the Ville de Lyon, EDF and NumériCABLE. GL Events is the production company.