Permanent public artwork for CENTRE VIDEOTRON
interactive video & light installation
mix materials, 5120 polycarbonate translucent capsules, DMX controlled LED video matrix
Hauteur : 18m – Largeur : 50m – Profondeur : 0.2m – variable
” Time given shape and colour. Behind Le Great northern blue, the idea of a climate without border, a landscape too vast and evanescent to be contained by the word it invokes (winter) or the gaze it beckons (our own), is made translucid. Whether we see it as a sheet of sky turned upright, or as a path through sea ice opening diagonally, its reification is at once all-concealing and unmistakable. It’s colours are prompted by our own warmth. True north, depicted in sweeping blueness: time and again, this limitless landscape pierces us as we peer within it. “ – Daniel Canty
LE GRAND BLEU DU NORD (The great northern blue ) is an interactive, luminescent array activated by crowd density in real-time, installed in Québec City’s multifunctional amphitheatre – Centre Vidéotron.
Taking up almost the entire wall of the main entrance hall (nearly 4000 square ft and three stories high), this monumental public artwork is comprised of 5120 backlit blue polycarbonate modules. The mosaic-like surface resembles an enormous cliff face that betokens the windswept forms of snowdrifts characteristic of a Québec winter. The array formed behaves like a very low-resolution (64 X 128 pixels) auto-input video screen that takes on aspects of a winter landscape shaped by wind, snow, and ice. This panoramic work can be viewed either from one of the three aisles accessible at each level overlooking the main entrance hall, or by taking the escalator surmounting it diagonally.
Collaborateurs au projet :
Industrial design : Generique Design
Electrotechnical et programming : Rene Wassenburg
Visual programing : Thomas Ouellet Fredericks
Injection molding : Platique Gagnon
Fabricator : Les Boîtiers Custom Métal
Electronic assembly : RS Électronique
PCB fabricator : Labo Circuit
DMX programming : Simbits
Engineering : Concept Paradesign
Electrical : Revenco
Scaffolding : Échafaudage Plus
Writer : Daniel Canty
Installation : Ludovic Boney, Sylvain Hotte, Alexis Bellavance, Danny Perreault, Mathieu Robitaille, Cédrick Charest, Kevin Païz, Marie-Christine Tardif, Maxime Chiasson, Mathieu Fecteau, Marianne Cloutier, Breadan Hewitt, François Simard