i did multiple site visits, including a tech test installing the portal and lights, to flesh out the design for this techno renegade. my goal was to divide the enormous available space to define a dancefloor and incorporate the concept of a portal that visitors could pass through to transport themselves into the mindset for the event.
the night’s title was “impact”, with the loose narrative of a meteor contacting the site. the meteor was mimicked with fallen branches gathered from the site in a radial pattern meant to evoke an impact crater of about 40′ in diameter, and accompanied by an altar that
the 6′ high division was defined by manila twine stretched across a 56′ gap between two redwoods, with gaps that would not permit a body to pass through so that the visitor would be encouraged to walk through the portal. this gave the division an organic-material feel, while still permitting them to see the other side of the division clearly. blacklight-reactive orange marking tape led the visitor from the crater towards the portal. blacklights pointed tangent to the division lit the marking tape.
i wanted the portal’s aesthetic to be ethereal and bright. we punched small regular holes (about 2″ apart) into flexible plumbing pvc anchored into the ground, and set up two small fog machines to push fog into the pvc. we attached programmable led strips to the pvc that were fully controllable by the visuals artists as well as audio-reactive.
we also planned for two colored uplights to go up each redwood, but could only power one unfortunately, so we didn’t have the symmetry we planned for on the night of the performance.
