In downtown Brussels, designers Daphné Delbeke and Marc Largent of Magic Monkey have temporarily turned the top eight floors of an office tower into a spectacular new-product announcement for Toyota that is visible throughout the entire city. The concept was born last October, when Marc visited LDI and saw the prototype ColourPix V-LED system on the TMB booth. Largent immediately foresaw the unlimited possibilities–somewhere between lighting and video–of this brand new technology.
The massive LED array, showing custom video content created by Magic Monkey, was used to announce the European launch of Toyota’s hybrid-car, the Prius. The system ran nightly 8pm to 8 am (GMT +1) CET from March through April 12. A web-cam at Toyota’s official webpage and at Magic Monkey’s home page displayed live shots of the event.
Belgian production-rental company Can Do purchased and installed the brand new V-LED system. The temporary installation utilizes 608 ColourPix Pro-V8 8" fixtures, 38 wide by 16 high, giving a 2,000 sq. m., 70m x 28m, low-resolution video array. Two fixtures are placed in opposite diagonal corners of 304 windows (with no interruption of regular office activity).
It should be noted that one ColourPix V-LED controller will run up to 4,000 fixtures, so the system could have been six times as big. A higher resolution is also possible with closer spacing of fixtures. While this array is configured in a rectangle, any shape, or combination of shapes, is easily configured and patched using the ColourPix custom software. ColourPix fixtures can display video from any video source. The fixtures are 120/220V and control wiring is a simple daisy-chain, using standard DMX cable with no individual addressing required. Mpegs of the Toyota installation, plus other ColourPix installations, can be seen here.
For further information about ColourPix V-LED technology, contact TMB or visit their website.