Bay Lights Project turns SF Bay Bridge into a ‘big-ass display’ | Hacker News Reader

Bay Lights Project turns SF Bay Bridge into a ‘big-ass display’

venturebeat.com

36 pointscwilson21 comments

It's quite a sight to see. I love it. Although it doesn't officially start until this evening, they've been testing it every night. Here's a short timelapse that I shot of the bridge during one of the tests: https://vimeo.com/60966438

I might have misread the article, but it seems like the artist will be controlling the display.

It'd be cool if they built an API over this and allowed for crowdsourced displays, almost like how Google accepts designs for their homepage logo.

That would be seriously fun but a bit dicey. Looking at the LED 'pixel' it looks like it could have easily been an RGB pixel. Not sure that would be all that useful but still to have the colors would have been another dimension. With 9 LEDs you could either go 3-3-3 or 2-2-5 in terms of using Red, Green, and Blue LEDs to light it up. Or RGBK with 2-2-2-3. Lots of fun.

I've been watching the setups as the local newscast keeps their web cam pointed at the bridge for their nightly news. I hope it generates enough interest to become permanent.

Hmm, kind of sad that there's no mention of it's forerunner, the Blinkenlights project:

http://blinkenlights.net/project

It was done by a handful of folks (mostly CCC members) and included an API and the ability to play pong on it via cell phone. The 2002 follow-up was higher resolution:

http://blinkenlights.net/arcade

The Blinkenlights project doesn't seem to mention its forerunners either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwNQqePk8Kg http://bastilleweb.techhouse.org

I wonder who was the first to do this.

Marcel Duchamp, Rotary Glass Plates [Precision Optics] (formerly Revolving Glass Machine), 1920 Painted glass and iron with electric motor 65 1/4 x 62 x 38 inches Collection of Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Collection Société Anonyme

According to my book, Leo Villareal by JoAnne Northrup, on page 45, "During the 1996 iteration of Burning Man, Villareal covered his rented camper with reflective plastic to minimize the solar heat. He was suprised to note that this gesture created a stunning illusion--very much like a mirage where the reflection of surroundings creats a kind of camoflaging effect" and continues further down the page, "The following year [1997], Villareal decided to address another practical problem, one that stemmed from the exponential growth of the events attendance: how to find the way back to camp at night...Using 16 strobe lights and a Basic Stamp microcontroller, he constructed his first light pulsation system and mounted it atop his camper on a wooden lattice structure. It turned out to be much more than a simple navigation beacon: it projected sequences that 'expressed a desperate need to communicate in a language that begged to be decoded.'"

and continues to talk about how modified the structure and exhibited it from his New York Studio and worked on several other projects leading up to Disorient in 2001.

"The world’s largest LED light sculpture will light up San Francisco tonight: 1.8 miles long, 500 feet high, and consisting of 25,000 individually programmed lights tied onto the entire length of the Bay Bridge’s western span..."

This is going to be pretty incredible.

Full article (it's 2 pages and the pagination isn't the most obvious): http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/05/bay-lights-project-turns-s...

Leo Villareal, the creator of this project, is one of my favorite artists because he is a geek like us. He builds and codes all of his light installations himself (at least to date he has).

My favorite piece is this large floor-to-ceiling gallery installation: http://youtu.be/IhKshdYr5rE?t=34s

There were 5 or 6 Mac minis mounted at the top of the installation driving the light changes.

Additionally the gallery rep explained that Villareal programmed the light change combinations to be random (pseudorandom -- she wasn't a geek), and will never repeat within our lifetimes. I expect the same is true of the bridge installation.

Here's another video with Leo explaining details of how/why he builds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HplsGiSmnJI

Discusses writing software around the 1:50 mark.

Is there anyway we can get the lights turned back on the Golden Gate Bridge? They turned them off a long time ago to save money or the environment or something. I can remember how cool it used to look.

I am very interested in learning how to do this. Can anyone point me to some information; tutorial on how or where to start?

http://createdigitalmotion.com/2012/09/shine-an-led-wall-loo...

I thought it already launched - the bay bridge has been lighting up for past few weeks.

They've been testing and calibrating. Tonight is the grand launch.

is it a permanent install?

If you read the article it was a "temporary" but probably at least long-term install. There was an issue with calling it permanent. But read the article, it talks about it. :)

Obligatory reference explaining why I read this as "big ass-display": http://xkcd.com/37/

How long until it becomes a billboard, though?

never. I know your comment was a joke, but this dude Villareal takes his work very seriously and I want to convey 1) that he is legit and 2) that all of my fellow HN readers should be following his work beyond just this bridge.

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