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[Music]
okay let's start welcome this evening on
the bits and po stage um for our last
talk for this day um I'm sure you're all
familiar with blinking lights and uh who
doesn't love um blinking lights you know
that's why we're all here uh in the end
so I think I don't have uh much to
introduce to do uh just want to say
please give a warm welcome to Tim love
who will give us a very thorough Insight
on the project blink and lights your
stage hello hello hello I hope you do
not know the project already in uh if
with all its inin and outs um but let's
make a check so who knows in general
what I'm about to talk
about that's by far too much
um who has seen the first
one who has seen the second one uh-huh
okay who knows about the third
one all right okay so I'm going to talk
a bit about the project um so there
might be some duplication to your
knowledge but uh I think it's worthwhile
looking back a bit and I'm trying to
have a slightly different um view on on
on what happened because it's also about
failure and what didn't
happen because that's uh you know what
comes with every project so project
blinking lights where did it all start
it was um a crazy idea that popped up in
2001 and uh it was kind of related to
the death of w Holland who died in 2001
in uh May
2001 which was a disaster for us because
we all expect him to be there when the
CCC has its 20th birthday which was you
know coming up in the September of that
year and he just um you know decided to
quit early which uh was quite bad so we
had uh to come up with with a new idea
and we thought okay so let's do a party
somehow and and in a way that's how we
found our way to this uh project which
was just beginning with the idea of
having a party and in the end it all got
more and more uh
complicated so um here's an overview of
what has happened in this uh project so
in 2001 we had this first installation
in uh Berlin and we didn't really expect
anything to happen uh out of this but
there were quite some implications
it's a bit bad that the sun is uh
shining directly on the screen I hope
you can
uh somehow see something 2002 we had the
second installation in uh Paris and 6
years later on we had another
installation of this uh large scale uh
type uh in Toronto in Canada and of
course we had a tiny presence here at
the camp this year that's basically uh
what happened
so let's look back to the blinking
lights project so as I told you it all
started with this idea of having a party
and the idea was um having a party
actually in this building houses leas
which at that time was totally
empty um it was in use before because uh
it was like this crazy concept of Nong
in bin so you know they didn't know what
really what to do with it so they threw
in all those artists who lived there for
uh quite some time and uh had their
crazy projects and when we came to the
empty building and looked if this is a
good venue for a party we found out it
wasn't because it was stinking of all
those parties that have already happened
the years before so that was not an
option um the new owners of that
building also owned the BCC conference
uh center next to this building which
was also home to the ks communication
Congress for many many many years but
not at that time time because it was
about to be renovated uh in 2001 so they
decided why don't you do your party over
there it's much nicer and doesn't stink
so okay we said okay fine why not and
everything got a bit bigger and bigger
and bigger because there was lots of
space to fill so we had this huge cupula
that we had to fill with a party and
there was this space around it which we
had to fill with something so we came up
with well then let's do an exhibition
too and uh so on this all happened 5
weeks before the date and um somehow I
had this idea of using those windows
even for the party already just to write
CCC on it with lights you know because
it's it's a pixel display why shouldn't
you write something on it and um that's
one of those moments you know where
where your life takes a turn somehow
because I just dropped this idea uh in a
in a group of people and the first
response was well then you can start
playing Tetris on it
right yeah and that was this freeze
moment was like hm what if you know and
of course 5 weeks later we had this uh
project and um as you might already know
it was uh quite interactive so we
coupled it with the telephone system and
it was possible to play Pong on it with
a mobile phone which at that point in
time was rather uh Innovative there
would have been other installations like
this actually one year uh earlier there
was something in Brussels and there have
been some you know some approaches to
this to the same idea and the years
before so there were always nerds who
knew that windows and pixels you know
are sort of the same concept um so and
that was also our approach so we didn't
really think of this as much you know as
being very you know special in a way it
was more obvious in uh in our uh view so
the Innovative part was of course the
interactivity and coupling it with the
mobile phone was uh you know rather
new and um we also wanted
to uh Embrace participation so we had
this idea of giving out a format
description of giving out tools so that
people can do their own
movies and it was really interesting to
see that although the resolu that's what
we thought you know we thought oh my God
it's just 144 pixels can anybody do
something with it and as you will see
when we move over to the other project I
think it has actually made things easier
for people because if you reduce the
resolution you also reduce the
complexity and then people had to be
super super creative in order to make
something out of it and I think the
blink lights movies of this first
installation are still the most creative
that that we have ever seen although you
can't see it because the sun is shining
on the screen I apologize for the sun
bad bad evil Day star anyway you know
pixels on the
screen
um and this was
also uh a simple idea here behind is to
have this simple text format I wouldn't
choose zeros and ones in the text format
if I would redo it uh but these are the
decisions you make and then you can
never uh change it so that's that's all
you need so you just have this and uh
with two
frames you just have uh an animation
already
so this is what happens if you are
inside the building because it was all
built with simple relays and everything
was very very uh simple
technology and for anybody who was
looking at it you know it looks like
magic it's like how have you done this
you know how does this work people are
so amazed about it um which is funny
because it's super simple uh here's an
explanation by our Russian uh friends
who have kind of visualized this uh
concept what you have to
[Music]
do so you take the building empty it out
put Windows uh lights behind the windows
and then it's all about timing you know
you have to make sure that the team is
well prepared and knows everybody knows
what to do when the time comes you know
people Press buttons when people press
buttons you have to go there is no other
option so it was lots of running around
and walking the stairs and we did this
for 6 months can you imagine it's
[Music]
uh yeah so game over of course that's
not how it worked
how it worked you can see
here from Dust Till Dawn oops no you
can't because I pushed the wrong
button um oh my God Tim so
professional from Dust Till Dawn linoln
lights continuously showed a variety of
alternating animations on its monochrome
Matrix 8 pixels High by 18
across by offering various options for
participation the CCC invited everyone
to get involved in this interactive
installation the name of the work was
derived from the hacker jargon for
flashing computer consoles blinking
[Music]
lights
by dialing the blink and lights computer
with a mobile phone passes by and play
the classic computer game pong on the
giant screen typically players are
pitted against the computer but if
someone else dials in they get to take
over the paddle usually controlled by
the computer the game is going on as
long as the connection remains
established when everybody is hung up
link and lights carried on to show its
almost endless Archive of specially
designed movies until the next person
decides to go for another game of
pong the installation used the top eight
floors of the House of the
[Music]
teacher behind the scenes the pixels
were brought to life by 144 flood lights
standing directly behind the windows the
windows have been painted wi to make
them more
[Music]
translucent each light was connected to
a simple relay switching the electricity
Source from each relay a long control
cable span the distance to the control
center in the eighth floor toling more
than 5 km of cable in the whole
building the control center consisted of
three computers interconnected via a
local area network each system was
running self-developed software under
the canoe Linux operating
system and this is how interaction with
blink and lights Works people either
send their blink and lights movies by
email or directly call the system with
their mobile
phone the Chaos Control Center computer
manages the animation playlist or reacts
to incoming calls effectively starting
the pong game at that very
moment the images to be displayed are
constantly transmitted to The Matrix
control computer that is attached to the
relays and is responsible for actually
switching the individual lights on and
[Music]
off this wild setup of cables actually
worked flawlessly for 166 days and
demonstrated that the Hacker's approach
to technology is sometimes pretty
[Music]
unconventional
[Music]
yeah clear cut this just an accept of
the
whole
[Applause]
thanks it's an except of the of the
whole
full documentation video that's out on
YouTube and well I think it shows that
we have accomplished something uh in
that time and we've been very lucky that
while we expected the whole system to
blow up after two weeks because you
you've seen the cabling you know uh and
we didn't really expect lamps and and
and and especially the relays to to work
for a significant amount of time it
actually well worked half a year and we
didn't even know that we could use the
building for half a year because we were
basically waiting for renovation to
start but this can take time and it took
some time and this enabled us to not
only only improve the system and respond
to user requests and and and wishes and
new ideas that came up um so we could
constantly uh adapt with the software to
to to new ideas like this um Wish by
many people to have their personal movie
on screen on demand which we coupled
with the pong game so people could call
the system pong starts then they entered
their code that we have provided to them
and then their you know Love Letter
movie uh starts playing so which was
super enabling because you're standing
in the city of the capital and you can
just like with a press of a button you
can just you know make a building play
your movie to whoever you want it to see
and that was pretty amazing and it was
for us also pretty amazing to see the
reaction of the city in the beginning
only the city and later on the rest of
the world um I will go more into uh this
aspect let me uh shed some light on the
other projects uh first then I will show
you some of the cultural implications
this whole project had for us and uh me
especially it was a wild ride I can tell
you it it was like the the defining
moment in my life and since then nothing
was like
before but then we got a
call uh I think it actually it was an
email I don't know so somebody asked me
well could you imagine doing this again
and this was while the original blink
lights installation was still running
and um well
um I said okay uh where yeah in Paris
and I said well okay so they had this
new art festival that was coming up they
had a new mayor and the new mayor wanted
to do something awesome and he had this
idea of doing a new art festival in
Paris which still runs it's called Nu
blanch uh I think it started in 2002 and
it's still running as far as I know and
uh they wanted us kind of as the
headliner of this whole festival which
was super amazing and I thought well
yeah we we could do it but only if you
have an interesting building for us yeah
and she said well I'm calling you back
and she called me back and told me we
could you know use the facade of the
bibl naal France which was quite
something and it was super big um here
some Impressions if you can uh spot them
so if you don't know the bibl naal
France
is um a super huge area close to this to
Lassen and it's basically four
skyscraper buildings L-shaped so it's
like books you know it's a library so
it's supposed to be like four books that
are uh standing next to each other
there's a park
inside uh but we only got one of the
towers was uh well I I I would have
taken both
but in the end I was quite happy that we
didn't do that because it would have
killed us because this had already
killed us but we called it
aad uh so it's a reference of course to
the Arad games and but also works as a
French word which also very important
that you use French words if you're
doing something in France uh to get
acceptance and we improved on this
gaming idea because now we had a larger
screen and we would still wanted to
retain this
interactivity and um we also wanted to
work with uh Grays scaling because
before the original blink lights was
like pure onoff monochrome and nothing
else because it was just simple relays
and this time we uh improved the
technology we use I mean improved the
technology we didn't just use Simple
relays we just came up with something we
built our own boxes and it was still
network based and this time we had this
huge screen and we had new games like
Pikman and breakout
and other
games
um yeah of course using the higher
resolution we could experiment with
images and and and and movies and that's
also where the trouble starts I mean uh
looking back I would have chosen at
least to have less Grays scaling you
might wonder why isn't bigger better
isn't more
better I disagree we had like um eight
did we have eight I think yeah I think
we had um eight three bits um eight gray
scales and that was probably the maximum
we should have used um because if you
have too much granularity that all
becomes kind of mushy and uh anyway but
it was still looking great it all
depended on how you design it and what I
especially like about it is that you
could see it basically from from
everywhere I mean you could this this
photo is I think taken at least 1
kilometer uh from it away because it
stands at the river s and it's had high
visibility from uh many many places
which was uh gorgeous and then it works
much better but also important
is that we
should always think about these project
as architecture
projects and not
displays although they are displays but
they're still
architecture so we had all these
um funny images and let's uh have a look
at how this look like in
real real
[Music]
animations
[Music]
load
s the
heart
[Music]
show
[Music]
G
[Music]
get get
[Music]
CIS
[Music]
I have no idea what's happening here
with this video and you can't read the
English text because it's covered by the
Sun but basically you get the gist of it
um this was a um complicated
installation but in a sense still you
know using standard technology The Twist
was that for the first time we developed
our own technology so we had this Linux
uh customized Linux box that we have
built to our specifications which was
doing all the dimming because I I mean
we we could have taken standard DMX
lighting equipment I mean controlling
lamps was not new in 2002 I mean this
existed but it would have been super
super uh expensive on the one hand and
wouldn't have been as flexible as we
wanted it to be because there's always a
tiny twist where you want to optimize
something which then you can't do
because you know close systems or
limitations of the protocol and we
wanted to be in control of everything
that was the uh general idea so we
finished that project in Paris and then
things caled down a bit um although we
redid the original blinking lights
version at the house of the teacher for
I I've forgotten like two three times to
other occasions for a short period of
time I'm not sure it was totally worth
it but at least we did it then the the
renovation started and there was this
construction uh sign and we actually
built a replica version as led based
inside this construction sign so as long
as the building was redone you could
still look at this and uh it was always
our idea to you know make it permanent
in a way I explain bit more about this
uh as well but let's move on to the
third part stereoscope which was then
done in 2008 and again it was a
continuation of this new blanch story
because the Canadians thought well what
Paris is doing is super cool we need to
do the same thing so they also started a
new blanch and of course they wanted
blink lights to be their headliner
because that's how it's done you know
they learned this from uh Paris and um
at that point in time our team was also
you
know not mostly but partly uh dismantled
people move on doing other things but uh
F and I we decided okay we are going to
do this uh even with a smaller team and
so we flew into Canada and looked at
this building not sure you can uh
properly see it but this is the Toronto
City Hall which is quite amazing
building it's two SK two curved
skyscrapers of different size standing
more or less opposite to each other open
towards the front where there's a big
place what's the name of the place again
pH Square Phil Nathan Phillips Square so
quite iconic very good architecture I
liked it and it was basically four
screens because there are like Brakes in
the middle and two buildings mean meant
okay even more windows we had 144 in
Berlin we had 520 in Paris and now we
are facing
1040 uh if I remember this uh correctly
um which is a lot you know because if
you're doing these projects you really
learn that things can get really messy
if you have to multiply everything by
1040 you know if you do if you need
something to do on one window that takes
a minute it means you have another 1,40
minutes of work that needs to be spread
out over people and so on so we uh
gathered a small team in uh Germany and
we made a plan and we didn't know you
know what would uh happen but at least
we had a plan and we were kind of like
okay we don't have enough people but
we're probably going to make it
somehow um and we would have failed I
guess um but then at the right moment
these guys came in here Andrew and
uh his friends and Jonathan and Dan
would sent me an email and said I don't
where did you hear from this project
because it wasn't officially I mean
announced it was an article all right
okay so somebody has told somebody
something and you read it and you knew
and he knew uh about the original
project so we came together and as a new
international team we uh we made it it
was even more uh technology so our next
Focus was actually on the technology
because we knew we couldn't do it with
this dimic technology before and so this
time we uh built a wireless dimming
system so there was one of these
Wireless dimmers attached to the uh
lamps and we still had the same concept
of putting this um plastic sheets on it
which is called dump brm Folia in uh
German which is a name you should
remember um it's usually worked for used
for for construction you put it in in
your roof to you know prevent Steam from
entering or leaving the house I don't
know anyway but it's perfect it's a B1
it's fire approved and uh it's super
cheap and it's like the perfect diffuser
for for light it it's really amazing we
used it here uh as well so that was our
Focus new technology and of course again
we were sending UDP packets around the
building this time it was two building
buildings and yeah by Magic we made it
work like a day before it it worked it
was close it was really really close
this time so some uh media Impressions
here as well we did a documentation
video but it was not as good as this
report done by uh Daily Planet on the
Discovery Channel so uh let's have a
look at this I hope the sun is not ruin
it
completely
or my computer a team of computer
hackers commanders Toronto's iconic City
Hall and the authorities don't mind
calling themselves project blinking
lights the Berlin based group turns the
building into a giant video display they
unveil it during Nei blanch an allight
Arts Festival thousands blocked to check
it out in fact they get right into it
the idea from of thinkinking Lights is
to turn the building into a display that
can be used by anybody in the normal
mode it just displays various animations
are there's a playlist of movies and
just plays back one after the other but
the real funny part is that you can
actually play games on the building so
you just take your mobile phone call a
number and at that moment the display
the building shows a game which you can
command and control just using the
keypad of your telephone I've got 28
each of the 960 Windows becomes a single
Pixel in a giant video
screen they call the display the
stereoscope because it takes advantage
of the two curved Towers unique
design it's a huge project five months
in the planning and more ambitious than
the group's previous efforts in Berlin
and Paris project blink and lights is a
group of gifted people who are into
technology who love technology who love
to play around with it and to be a
hacker is not a bad thing the term
hacker is something very positive for us
hacking is about breaking things in
order to see how it works it's a very
creative process so what other people
call hackers should called should be
called
criminals all the programming originates
from a central command station it relays
instructions to small computers on each
floor they send signals to
custom-designed wireless dimmers
attached to each light directing them to
Glow at one of 16 different intensities
and every window has to be rigged
individually the first thing you have to
do is to put up these cover
sheets so now the cover sheets are set
up and now we can install the dimmers
for the lamps that's all that needs to
be done now the dimmer is fully
operational back at the control center
the team monitors the display via a live
video feed and a realtime simulation of
what's being played in the windows some
animations come from blink and lights
members that anyone can download the
code and send in a
show project blinking lights is all
about
participation when we created our first
installation we didn't consider it to be
an art project we wanted it to be a
platform a platform for people to get in
contribute code contribute animation and
contribute new ideas and that's exactly
what happened we are focusing on
enabling Technologies in order to make
everybody
participate and even if you don't
contribute an animation or play a game
you can interact with the
stereoscope we have created this nice 3D
simulation simulator that also shows the
same stuff in real time but where you
can change the view dynamically and
choose from where you want to actually
look at the
building
so the same program exists for the
iPhone and that way you can participate
worldwide during Nui BL Chris Palmer
can't beat out the other 1,200 visitors
calling in to play video games but he
can change his point of view without
going anywhere I downloaded a little
program for my iPhone so what's cool is
it's giving me a realtime feed of what's
up on the building right now and you can
kind of pan around and see what's on the
other side of it you know zoom in see it
up close change the angle that you're
getting at see what it looks like from
down on the Square all of that it's
really exciting to see you know what's
possible with this kind of
Technology Tim prit love says that the
blink and lights team are only artists
by accident what they really do is
create giant Technologies for people to
share with each other project blink I is
also about reclaiming public space
bringing such a building especially a
city hall that's made for the people
back to the people in a very literal
sense so if when you can play a game
yourself on a building or you can even
design your own animation and put it up
on this huge screen that's something
where people really reconnect to the
public space kind of pan up see it from
up in the air outer space view that is
so
cool H so
cool yeah Dominic and Martin they did
this iPhone app which was one of the
first iPhone apps in the app store
wasn't it it was yeah it was one of the
first probably the
[Laughter]
first okay um I think the sun is now
completely ruining my presentation but I
try it so what have we learned uh so far
uh in this project so first of all it's
all about architecture what I really
dislike is this trend that has now
evolved with buildings completely
covered in LED technology I mean if you
you've probably seen things like in in
China where you have like whole areas
many many many
skyscrapers being one giant
building which is super intrusive and
the total opposite of what we try to do
also I think you should focus if you
work with light you should really focus
on what the building itself provides in
terms of Windows and and and other
structure so it looks much uh better it
is an architecture project um yeah and I
think we always tried to you know be
handson we wanted to develop our own
technology to the extent that it makes
sense of course we're not designing our
own processes for this but anything you
know that comes along that uh enables
you to uh have cool features that were
otherwise not possible that's always
worth investing time uh time in I think
and with this approach of of trying to
provide as many angles and and
um ways to participate and to to uh
integrate with uh such an installation
is always helpful so we had these movie
formats the editor with the first
project and the second project we had
this uh 3D visualization on the phone um
which is probably not necessary for this
whole thing to work but adds uh more to
it you know and then you also need to
make sense you need to uh stay simple so
that could still be understood and it's
not too too weird I've always struggled
with artists that have projects where
you need to have like tons of text that
you are supposed to read through to
understand what it's all about and what
its meaning is and how to use it
actually I think if you do not
understand how it works just by you know
standing in front of it you have kind of
failed so let's do uh small detour on
what hasn't worked and
um first of all we really struggled to
somehow extend this original blink and
light
project what you can't see now here is
our idea of how to make the project
survive on the renovated building so our
idea was to leave the windows alone and
use the space in between and light it up
but we were too late for this planning
has already started and it wasn't clear
if we would uh get um funding for this
but I think this would have worked uh
pretty good although it was only seven
lines and no longer eight lines then but
you know at least uh we tried something
else we tried which didn't work out
because of reasons
was
um okay let me show you what this is you
know you see here uh a wooden steel uh
structure a mechanic button so this was
basically supposed to be a button we
built this prototype and it actually
worked but it was probably too
complicated would have broken I don't
know wouldn't have survived but the idea
was to have a button that you can jump
on a button that you can jump on and
that
also uh has some back pressure with
spirals that you could not only jump on
it but you can like constantly hop on it
and being propelled into the air and
back like a trampoline that was the idea
and then of course a switch and this
whole thing should be covered with um uh
some kind of acrylic uh button which
is here which you can't see because the
sun is completely ruining my
presentation so use your
imagination that's what we
did we also uh did a small animation
which might be visible somehow I don't
know to make people understand what we
were uh trying to achieve because there
wasn't only supposed to be one button of
course there should be one button for
each window so here's the building with
all the blinking uh windows but what we
wanted to do is to provide a keyboard to
this terminal and then have 144 of these
buttons lying on the ground in front of
it and then you should just imagine like
a group of kids hopping around on these
uh buttons to you know make it work
maybe that's an uh inspiration for other
projects we can't do it
all and then there were like tons of
dreams we got like
buildings uh from all over the planet
you know it was like everywhere
Australia South America
Asia uh we were very close to doing
other projects in in in Dublin
oh God I forgot there was so many I
constantly people were sending us email
here is a a nice building what do you
think and sometimes we even did some 3D
rendering so there was a phase for a few
years where we were like that close to
the next installation and then it all
erupted into nothingness because uh
reasons because always like building
owners didn't agree plans for renovation
change money wasn't available or uh
other reasons uh yeah it was um maybe it
was good because somehow the story was
already uh told but we always dreamt of
having a a third installation so we were
quite happy that we did that with
Toronto and then you know it was kind of
done so I told you that there were like
lots of cultural uh
implications
um it's very difficult to explain but
when you do such a project in the middle
of a huge city that is you know crazy
and and and and people like love crazy
uh stuff we were really in a malstrom of
attention in a way with this
installation it took a while especially
because we started the project on
September 11 2001 so we we switched it
on you know and then New York happened
and nobody took notice of our project
for for two weeks but after the dust has
settled uh it all went wild and and and
then we were like busy on a daily basis
for this and blinking lights has found
its way in in in many uh many parts of
of the culture uh for instance one I
have
actually forgotten to include in uh in
these slides was that there was a remake
of the
movie uh berin Symphony a bin Symphony
of a capital
city uh which was done 100 years ago and
there was a remake done in exactly 20
2002 so the original movie by valta
grman I think was like daily scenes in
Berlin standard life so it's like a very
interesting movie you should uh watch it
the original and the Remake um where you
could just like watch how people lived
in Berlin 100 years ago and now there's
a remake uh how people lived in Berlin
in 2002 so it shows all kinds of scenes
uh around the city and blink L was also
included so that's a nice touch but it
was especially uh welcomed by technology
oriented uh culture for instance there
is a replica of the original blinking
lights building at minat vand in uh
Hamburg which is um if you don't know it
it's like a a railroad uh model
superlative it's like I don't know how
many kilometers of uh trains they're
going and rails they're following it's
uh super amazing if you haven't been
there go there and of course they asked
us also if they could include it they
have no bin section so it's somehow in
in looks like if it's in Hamburg but you
know they should have a b section and of
course also in this scene there are lots
of um replicas that was um at the second
Camp I think there was this blinking
area Village that kind of took up on the
idea and produced all kinds of replicas
of the original installation other stuff
uh some of them even went uh and and did
similar installation on other buildings
so um can't really see this is like more
or less a tiny chip just with LEDs on it
which which looks like the uh other one
and this is also very beautiful just
believe
me yeah um
and of
course now that we were kind of the
official representation of everything
that blinks you
know uh uh a a perfect storm of
information went towards us you know so
we got notice of everything that was
blinking around the planet uh all the
time and also some things happened just
at the same time without us knowing and
without them knowing so kind of we hit
the tone of the time for
instance Kylie Mino brought out this uh
can't get you out of my head uh hit
singer and what did she do her of course
she was dancing in front of blinking
skyscrapers that look like exactly like
our installation that's of course fake
you know I mean the building is not
Kylie
Mino but
[Music]
we honored this with Kyo dancing on aada
on the in the Paris installation
actually but
yeah we see more blinking I hear some
blinking yeah we should have done this
probably
too all those
dancers but it wasn't in the
[Music]
budget and other artist is also you know
took notice so uh now we were like the
hip location to do your new music video
that was uh the first one was uh Miss
kitten which had this
um what's it called H ripping kitten
whatever so they actually filmed it
outside and on the building so the girl
is now sitting on the building
actually I feel and if you ask yourself
like oh there's a blinking window is
this the original blinking lights
there's always one thing to look
for because the windows are not
completely covered in light there's this
uh one line that's dividing each
window come on show me
one feet
H where is it
[Music]
okay it will
[Music]
come anyway switch to the next one here
you can uh we we'll probably see it and
then people just use it for their
own media appearances took their own
videos for instance this is a video that
the Han Museum the the The Hemp Museum
in uh in Berlin
took and of course again they use Blink
lights and you can see it's real because
you see this dividing line you know
that's what I was talking about and also
part of our documentation video which is
totally fine they didn't ask but we
don't care was all out in the open so
they sent in this hun Museum uh movie
you know as a love letter so they could
activate it themselves perfect you know
I like this uh very
much good music as well
okay and to to top it all off uh we got
a call uh of the managers of D to hosen
and they wanted to do uh as well so they
actually filmed the music video inside
the building so they
were locating one uh room very close to
the
installation and doing their uh rock and
roll
I should have started later on takes a
while ah it's blinking
okay
so you know we were in this frenzy of
media attention and and and and cultural
attention I could have given even more
uh examples was like used in the in TV
uh advertisements and not everybody
asked basically nobody but uh we didn't
care because we kind of considered blink
lights to be in the open in anyway and
what what can you do um there was uh
enough to do to just uh make it work and
you know we had the appreciation of the
uh people when we announced that we have
to take it down at the middle of 2002 oh
I can tell you people were
depressed
but it goes
further um I hope you can see it it's a
bad quality and I have no idea what this
is is actually I have no idea but
somehow it find its way to me but
somehow blinking lights was part of a
strange Japanese TV show and if you've
ever seen Japanese TV shows they're all
strange so I don't know what's going on
but usually they come up with some weird
story and do a quiz show around it or
some kind of participation I have no
idea so let's have a
look it's called the real mystery so
there's some riddle and something is
happening can you make it
louder so there's a
mystery
does anybody speak
Japanese I've never translated it
actually I should have done this so now
he needs to go to the
toilet obviously he is in Berlin because
now there's this white
guy
that's like how Germans are probably
seen
something which is probably going on
he's super
[Music]
confused I think no Japanese story is
complete with some kind of horror or
Godzilla like implications I don't
know
[Music]
[Applause]
for
so it's some kind of mystery detective
story and people should come up with
answers I
[Music]
guess
oh
[Music]
so they giving out hints I
guess to solve the real
[Music]
mystery oh
foree
foree to
you
n
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so the whole video is much longer than I
remembered I would have cut it a
bit I think we getting to the point
now
hopefully
[Music]
[Applause]
for
[Music]
fore so we
go
[Applause]
[Music]
P so this is real Japanese excitement of
course
I'm moving so they basically took our
documentation videos and mixed it all in
it's a it's a weird mix of
everything but um how how it works all
right
so that's the look
[Applause]
back so some time has passed now and we
didn't really do any new projects
although we have been talking about many
many anymore but in the end uh this
project is kind of over but then I went
to the first visiting uh event here
before this camp and then things
happened and so we did a new project
which you might have seen here called
polychrome and it's actually
640 pixels for you 10 * 8 by 8 and um
yeah we called it polychrome why did we
call it uh polychrome which you might
not know is that
polychrome is a real established uh term
and it's hidden now behind the sun and
it reads it's the practice of decorating
architectural elements in a variety of
colors perfect match that's what we do
so we saw a dead pixel so this area
maybe the next uh shows something it's
crazy okay you've seen the uh the
windows over there and uh they were
filled with uh glass braks just recently
actually 3 years ago but this has not
existed at the last Camp so we came up
with the idea of doing something about
it and well this
um can you see this
here this is the the windows from behind
that's an area where usually the train
Parks so it just goes uh through this uh
PA this uh nothing more to see there and
we came up with an idea of how to do
lights there and of course time has
passed 15 years is a long time and when
LED technology was totally you know in a
different state of affairs when we
started the original blinking lights
there were only red and green LEDs there
were no blue LEDs or at least there were
no blue LEDs that you could buy and use
you know they were invented but they
were not you know ready for uh sale and
of course there was no cheap LED and
there was uh also no cheap LED that you
could do full color with but this time
it's possible so we uh looked up our
options on Alibama and found this tiny
piece which super cool it's actually a a
round enclosure you might see this here
against the sun with three uh LEDs on
one piece and then there are wired uh
with three wires uh one after the other
as a bus uh technically it's a
tm84 bus it's a one wire bus so you got
power and uh ground and then you have
this uh data cable where you can address
all these LEDs it's nothing new you see
this here everywhere the only difference
between the TM 1814 chip and others that
are usually in use is that this supports
RGB uh W so it's not only RGB but it
also has a white uh pure pixel Warm
White which we expected to use because
the first idea was let's do monochrome
because monochrome is cool and retro and
so on in the end we didn't do this at
all so we didn't use the W but it's
still there um yeah and it's powered by
uh 12 volts we use the neopixel bus um
library to to address this protocol and
it's it's pretty bright and like all LED
color LED that you can buy on the market
it's not calibrated you will hopefully
see this uh what it means I have my
doubts here if the Sun is still
disturbing this presentation behind oh
no it's behind the tree it's getting
better I need to slow
down later
um so you need to control this and in
order to control LEDs you need LED
controller that comes as a surprise to
you um we bought a readymade system
called Quin LED which is super cool it's
uh an ESP 32 based processor uh we have
got one one of these controllers per
window and on top of this processor is a
stack with an Ethernet shield
and also all the Power Electronics you
need in order to run the um the LED so
it's separate from the power supply for
the processor so it's pretty nice it's
uh not too expensive works pretty well
and on this we have uh our own firmware
that does all the light control and also
does the color calibration and it also
does something that you might not have
seen but it is there it's also running
an algorithm for after glob because we
originally wanted to simulate the
original blinking lights um lamps which
were Hogan lamps so they had this
natural after glow if you switch them
off and we wanted to simulate that um
although we didn't do this in particular
it came in handy because now it's
software control so whenever you run an
app or running certain animation you can
actually Define the Afterglow you want
to have and the Afterglow goes through
all the colors perfectly so it's not
only brightness actually mixing the
colors as you go so if you switch from
Blue to red and you have an Afterglow of
half a second it's a slow steady
transition through the color space from
one color to the other and that makes
for the special impression uh that we
have of course to make the system
complete of the each of these
controllers connected to the um LED
chain that it's stuck behind these
windows and um they're all
interconnected using ethernet and so
there's a central computer that's
running all the software and we have
thrown well we didn't really throw away
the old software but we didn't use it um
it's a completely new software stack and
it's mostly uh written in in
alexir which is uh the best programming
language you've heard about at this
Camp it's really amazing it does
Wonder um and apart from the uh firmware
and the part that does the audio part of
the system of course we had also uh one
loudspeaker on top of each uh window
everything is written in Alexia and
works beautifully so this uh system uh
Alexia also comes with the phix web
Library where you can do real time web
development so um on the right you can't
see the original simulator so we had a
webbased simulator for this installation
months before we had the the system
itself uh ready so on the web you could
see in real time the same stuff
including the Afterglow and everything
in a realtime web application it's also
all written in Alex here so it was
really helpful to develop all the
software then of course there's this
audio output that I mentioned which
we're using the ju library and the
controller input which is the the set of
buttons on this uh table in front of the
installation this system allows for apps
small tiny applications that run the
games and everything uh else and has um
idea of playlist and scheduling all this
uh stuff and everything else runs on a
UDP based um communication so basically
all those frames are just thrown onto
the ethernet bus and then it displays if
you want to have a look at the code it's
all online at GitHub uh.com blinkin
lights
polychrome so if you approach this you
really need to find an uh approach and
of course first we visited our old uh
friend the dump bre folio which you have
seen in the video uh which is it's so
amazing so cheap and um you really need
to use it if you do something with light
because the light distribution is so
perfect although this pixel itself makes
more or less A Perfect Circle you can't
see it if you put this uh crazy fall on
top of it so this was our first pixel
that was our second pixel uh which
actually contains one of those glass
bricks and we used that one to calibrate
the uh color and also to calibrate the
right distance of the LED towards the
glass brakes that's something we need to
to uh test how far away must it be be
how close can it be what's the uh
perfect distance turns out 15 cm was
right and uh as we uh wanted to have
these glass braks but you had to buy 10
we also did this uh 3x3 object here
which we didn't use which you can't see
because of the evil Day
star yes and then we needed this this in
EN closure this uh enclosure for all
these lamps so that's basically uh like
this shus carton so it's a it's a matrix
of uh wood plates and with a cover in
the back you see here papon drilling the
holes for the LEDs which you just uh
plug in in the uh backside and then we
mounted this whole thing behind the
windows covered with these sheets and
stuck to the
wall which super
easy now that the Sun starts cooperating
you can actually see it here is this uh
structure that ensures 15 cm uh distance
and also Shields each pixel from each
other because you don't want to have any
light bleeding and I think we succeeded
in that pretty well um here's the top
view so here's the LED in the middle we
uh eventually this is a photo of the
Prototype where we
thought having uh White Walls is a good
idea spoiler it wasn't you know it was
too bright our problem wasn't brightness
our problem was Darkness we wanted to
have um a steady and unnoticeable
transition from total darkness to light
and if it's too bright even if you put
the LEDs on the lowest signal level like
one on each RGB you know it's like
switching on uh the room and all the
Cockroaches are running away it was just
too much so we actually left it Brown
and added a second layer of this uh dumr
Folia and then it was kind of perfect
because then if you switch on the light
a bit it's just you know almost visible
and you could then really make a smooth
transition and that's also why on this
installation all those transition
transitions look so smooth otherwise it
would have been really noisy we uh
tested that so in the end you put in uh
the LEDs and mounted right in here and
we had this uh pole that just pressed it
onto the window and that's it so
basically that's the whole setup so and
then we switched it on and we tried
color and we s like oh my God this looks
so
cool we need to do color
because this glow was just perfect um
also the glass bricks add a lot of
structure and and make make it look
interesting but that's all the glass
bricks do they do no diffusion of any
kind that's all done by the dump forio
so now that the sun has gone I can
hopefully show you what the real uh
astonishing thing is if you take these
standard LEDs and you switch them on and
then you take your image with all the
original RGB values that look so perfect
on your
monitor
um it looks like
this that's like the generic Super Mario
and as you can see there's too much blue
all everything is bleeding out it just
looked awful and we didn't know what to
do and then we played around a bit with
curves and and and other things and
found out well maybe color calibration
is a good way to do it and then uh B
took the time and actually used this um
spider thing thing called the the spider
color color calibration tool that you
usually use if you're in a professional
um Photoshop artist or something like
this to calibrate your monitor and put
it on this hacked a bit so that we could
use it here with our installation and
now look what C calibration is doing
same
information and like magic it just looks
great and it not only looks great and
because there's less blue in it we now
could do colors that you're usually uh
impossible to see on any LED
installation that's not calibrated so we
have brown and dark pink tones and
everything so everything is really uh
looking the way you expected to be and
that enabled us to do much more uh Vivid
uh imagery here on on this uh
installation yeah and then we had this
audio system it's a 10 channel uh sound
system which was uh donated uh to us or
at least we could rent it for free um by
DB audio technique so it's very good
loudspeakers and yeah they were just
used for action and and and reaction
sounds we used this uh juice audio
framework to do that and we could have
done even more with it and we actually
had a lot of more plans uh what to do
with it but you know music makes light
more interesting because then you can
correlate uh much more to to what's uh
happening especially for games of course
and so on and then we had this uh
controller to you know control all the
things we are actually to be honest we
didn't really have any good idea of how
to use it we just knew like 10 buttons
is probably a good choice and we also
need joysticks that's all the magic uh
we had so we bought bought this uh
standard arar kit and uh these huge
buttons which are uh fun to uh hit on
and yeah it kind of worked you know it's
um it was uh in a way an experiment
while while doing all this so we used it
to control the games to um paramet tries
uh other apps yeah and then then it's
usually you know you start out with
something and then you end up with
something completely uh different and we
have um now a variety of apps and games
so we have this interactive apps
especially the pixel fun one which we
you have uh probably seen you can see
there which is super super super super
super simple idea it's basically just
one function that provides numbers from
minus one to+ one and then at random we
scale it uh assign colors to those uh
values we rotate it we transform it we
scale it and and that's what it makes so
uh interesting and in the latest
iteration we also coupling it with the
music so the music is actually
triggering this uh function it does
interesting uh stuff um so we had the
Lemmings you can control there's a
Tetris game there's a snake game there's
a Super Mario Martin uh did a Super
Mario completely in 8 * 8 which is uh
amazing and maybe we even have a w today
I don't know could be yes so what we
wanted to do is also sound to light so
that uh is something you can uh watch
this night so music will be running and
you can see the impact of the music into
the stuff uh and to round it all up
there was
also the option to to import animations
by whoever wants to contribute anything
uh there the webp uh format is uh
perfect and yeah and then we have lots
of Unfinished ideas and uh Miss
opportunities because uh we were running
out of time we have been working on this
for four months now I think true yeah
kind of so it was really uh a lot of
work we've been here like the first on
this Campground we're probably going to
be the last um yeah but it's like the
light installation has been installed
here a month ago and um probably take
some time to take it down yeah that's it
so if you walk there uh tonight you can
uh see it
working here you see the pixel
fun Real Time app running and you can
see the impact of the music that it
[Music]
has so a lot more can be done with the
installation unfortunately we only have
one uh night left but if you like join
us and see what can be done we were
trying to bring up all the uh games we
already had and uh add one or two new
ones that uh hasn't run uh yet
throughout the night and then you know
and then it's a time to uh say goodbye
thanks for
listening so any any questions maybe the
team uh can send up uh including the
Canadians just say hello so that you
know who's done it Pap Dominic Jonathan
Andrew Dan
Alex and one
more where's luuka luuka is over there
all
right so any questions any questions
your microphone my microphone not
working okay now that question okay I
come running with the microphone
yes um you said you hacked something
with the color collaboration tool what
did you
hack yeah I can answer
that um so basically we used the spider
3 which is like a standard tool use in
photography to calibrate your monitors
there's open source software for it um
we essentially use that um they have a
web mode where they display The Wanted
colors on a web page we essentially just
scrape that and put that into our
controllers yeah and that's what we do
to did essentially to create the curve
so it wasn't just like plain calibrating
the single colors like toning down the
blue like they were really off with the
sizes like the curves are pretty hefty
specifically the blue but yes so that's
what we did we bur it in the firmware
and yeah you saw the
result okay there's more question over
here here do you still have the archive
of the first project of the
animations yeah it should all be on
GitHub com/ blink lights if it's not
kick me um I've recently uh done a deep
dive into the old archives I know it's
probably not perfect not complete but it
all it's still all there the software is
there and it's actually running I I I
could recompile it after 20 years so
it's not all that bad yeah
yes um next I'm wondering about uh like
this project apparently scales big with
workload but I'm also thinking about all
the money that you get paid by the
artist festivals or where are you ah
there okay like um going to different
countries and filling big buildings with
light installations is not something
cheap I guess uh no so so actually well
the the first one was pure fun and super
low cost of everything I mean we used
just the like the most basic stuff I
think in the end we
spent
um 10,000 Demar so something like 5,000
in
total uh some of it was just paid by
somebody else so people came in and said
like I'm going to buy the lamps and and
stuff like this the remaining stuff what
I didn't tell you is we had this pong
telephone line it was actually running
over a value added telephone line so you
know 190 so actually we would have made
enough money to cover all the
costs but the provider company that was
like running the line for us went
bankrupt during the pro project so it
was all gone but it didn't matter you
know it was just something then uh Paris
was expensive there this was paid by the
Art Festival of course and same in
Toronto more or less covered the cost so
it was not much to uh earn from it here
uh we got um yeah there was a coverage
by by the event for like 10% of it and
the rest we just pay ourselves
because we're
idiots all
right there's another question over
here uh the question is why polychrome
needs to be torn down uh isn't there any
way you could fit this into the whole
museum Concept in uh midb here sure but
this T Park is only open in summer uh
and closes at 600 and the sun sets at uh
nine and so you could do it but nobody
would see
it any more
questions someone over
there
is this thing
on use it um I I just wanted to ask
about the col calibration again because
the controller the TM 15 something does
it have more than uh uh 255 levels or is
it no it's just 255 okay so so you have
probably a pretty granular resolution at
the low end basically yeah yeah so
that's what we try to mitigate by making
it darker essentially so when we had the
initial setup with the White Walls where
we essentially tried to bring as much
light as possible to the front then we
had that exactly that problem like the
lowest levels were very bright then we
made it artificial darker by making the
sides Brown by adding another layer of
the famous Dum volum um and that then
actually made the calibration possible
because we had these lowlevel increases
in the light and then yeah it it worked
much much
better all right over there one more
question team
from the first project owner of the
building what feedback did he or she
give to you after you know an increased
interest in the building and and word
fame well the owner uh is from East
Berlin and told me that he spent all his
money as a young kid to play Pong at in
the wool hiid at the F set and when we
put a pong on his new building he was
like in heaven
more questions we still have a bit of
time yep there's one over
here and with the other buildings was
there also some impact from the you said
before you integrated blinking lights
basically into the architecture of the
building so changed
the the people to the building or
something like
this um
yes
uh apart from us getting media
architecture prices or one which I don't
really care about but happened
um and I can't really verify this but
this is like what people told me later
on in Paris before the biblo naal France
which was a rather new building in Paris
was kind of non accepted in the city
it was like super expensive you know
when these huge projects uh started I
think it was the last project of fris M
who really shaped the city with his uh
whole style of uh big uh
architecture and I was told you know
that with this project and its exposure
at Nui blanch people looked at the
building differently that's something I
can't verify it's just like what was
related uh to me not sure what uh
happened in in uh in Toronto did that
have any long lasting impact or
reactions or anything can you say
something about this
anybody come on because you are from
Toronto and I have no
idea it made the front page of all the
papers of course at the time and uh
people I talked to still remember it
sometimes when like when they asked me
why why are you going to Berlin for a
nerd Festival
[Applause]
so yeah uh it's yeah I I I think it was
already a really favorite site a
favorite building in Toronto everybody
liked liked it but uh it's it was a
memorable uh a memorable use of the
building so more questions I just need
to bring the microphone over
there um so the first building was empty
and unused what about the other
buildings in Paris and Toronto and if
they were unus how did you deal with
people working in the offices and things
like that good question the uh bibl naal
France was uh especially suited to this
kind of use because the way the
architecture is built you have the
window then there was uh uh yeah a
continuous ale behind this this line of
windows so you could just walk along all
the windows and there were no offices
and then there was a I think that you
could turn it right yeah yeah it was
fixed in some levers and you could turn
it like a huge
swinging uh wooden door that you know
separated the windows from the rest and
in the offices you could close and uh
open them if you want the light to come
in it could also close them so usually
they are either open or closed and
during that project they were all closed
and of because everybody was complaining
but because uh the mayor of Paris has
said this is about this has to happen it
happened and nobody uh complained at
least not to us in uh Toronto there was
more
complaining I think we even tried
to uh Comfort the People by applying did
we come up with an idea of opening and
closing
them with bind Eclipse oh yeah yeah so
we we had to come up with solution but
it's a constant fight so all that worked
for us was that there is a date when it
was going to be dismantled anyway so
people just calm down and it's going to
end so yeah it's a problem and some of
those projects I
mentioned
they at least one of them was like we
didn't find any solution to this because
every office was different you know
desks very close to the window
everything totally crammed and then yeah
so the building needs to have some kind
of you
know needs to be prepared for us that's
that's what I would say yeah one
question over there the minut people are
they using your
software uh no they're not we we talked
about this but uh I think we were too
slow to
react I don't remember uh but you know
they hack everything themselves they are
the real hackers and and uh so they had
no problems but they were using our
original animations at Le partly
yeah I still hope they are opening a
Berlin area and redo this and then we I
don't know or a Paris area then we could
do the other bling lights there too that
would be
cool hasn't come up yet so anything else
yes I think there's a question over
here yeah I have the question um like I
can admire all the technical details and
the beauty of it but tell me some
something about the joy of hacker
collaboration because I mean at the end
this is what this is about right after a
million year long pandemic uh it's all
about connectedness again and
maybe maybe you have an idea of how to
share this Joy of hacker collaboration
that you obviously experien with
polychrome and the other
projects yeah sure I mean um yeah we all
had like I think
projects lined up after the pandemic not
able to implement something so it was
like um yeah it was welcoming to many
people um it was easy and like with this
idea with these windows it was easy to
cut everyone together and also with this
one was specifically interesting because
it was so wide area of different things
from this woodworking building all these
uh things behind the windows um to the
hardware like the electronics all of it
then the audio engine which is a
completely separate separate thing then
the next year live view all of these
things like was very wide and yeah
people from all these different areas
working together was actually pretty
nice and in a short time yeah we
actually made something happen um yeah
that worked very
well all right I think we have time for
one last question over there please uh
yes I was just wondering when you were
developing it um you had to do testing
did you worry about the public being
confused or calling 911 or something
like that
down this
public no for the previous project
oh
um good good question there were
incidents what what was
it wasn't there something in Berlin
that well um our major concern was how
to deal with the
911 9 911 problem so it was not 911 911
was our problem because it was like as I
said you know we we switched it on in
the night from the 10th to the 11th
September 2001 and we're like ready to
rumble yeah it's like yeah it works now
everybody's going to see it it's been
going to be so cool and then you know
everybody everybody's attention was
somewhere else and everybody was totally
um
um how would you describe this feeling
that that this event had I mean okay but
some people thought like okay now the
explosion is coming to my uh home City
but I think it was uh a situation where
everybody experienced some kind of fear
and nervousness and anxiety and and
there we were like in the middle of the
city with a huge building and we could
have sent everything any kind of
annoying message you know that brings
people to the edge it was totally in our
control to make everybody having a bad
day and we have also opened this Editor
to the public and of course it took like
a few hours and we had animations with
planes flying into skyscrapers and stuff
you know it was all there who was
sitting there like if we do this we are
you know they will fry us so we uh
didn't uh any of these animations and I
think for a few days we decided just to
only have the blinking
heart like for a couple of nights just
had this blinking heart that's why it's
the logo of the project as well and when
everybody calmed down we kind of got
more humorous and and had like more uh
stuff and and that worked pretty well
and lots of people turned to us and said
like oh yeah everybody was confused I
was just at the airport like everybody
was
out of their mind and then I came to
Alexander plat and saw the building and
life was going on again so okay that was
a very personal story might have been a
different experience for somebody else
but the emotional attachment to This
Light installation was really amazing I
mean
people um reacted to it uh in a very
peculiar way especially binas you know
who also always think that Belin is like
the coolest place and
they somehow adopted this uh project
immediately so when we had to tell
people that's going to be dment they
were Furious it's like no you can't take
it away from us you know it's
Berlin who am I to argue with that but
you know we had no choice to do that so
in the end we did a party and it was
like the party of bin at that days like
all the other clubs had to
suffer for a
day all right all right thank you very
much let's have it again for Tim and his
team for and the rest of the
[Applause]
team