London art installation uses 148 lasers

United Visual Artists has created perhaps the most varied and creative fine art display ever to use lasers. Creative Review calls it “a really beautiful piece of work — highly recommended.” This is UVA’s press release about the installation:

United Visual Artists (UVA) has been commissioned by Virgin Media to create an immersive light installation on London’s South Bank to mark the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK. ‘Speed of Light’ is a series of installations that explore the themes of communication and modernity. Stripped back to its materials, fibre optic is a thin strand of glass, with nothing more than a flickering beam of light. UVA have used this beam as the starting point for their work. The installations dramatize the experience of using fibre-optic communication, re-imagining it as an immersive environment.

The story begins with an input from the audience, which is transferred into a pathway of light, leading through the atmospheric environment of the Bargehouse. The continuous line of light evolves through each installation in turn shifting in intensity and form. Speed of Light uses over 148 lasers across four floors and six rooms of the Bargehouse, a raw and industrial warehouse on the South Bank. The installation will be open to the public from 9 – 19 April 2010.

Creative Review has an article about the installation, with lots of photos by Tom Oldham. Here’s a gallery where lasers describe the outline of a TV set, coffee table and sofa:

Four videos about the project can be accessed at UVA’s Speed of Light website. In case that link does not work, here are the four videos as hosted at YouTube:

 

LaserTalk from Tim Walsh, spring 2010 issue

Back in the pre-Internet days, ILDA had a newsletter called “LaserTalk”, with news about the association, its members, shows, new equipment, etc. ILDA’s president Tim Walsh has restarted LaserTalk. In the first issue, he discusses what he wants to accomplish with LaserTalk, what ILDA accomplished in 2009, and some upcoming events and plans:

Dear ILDA Members,

The New Year is 20% over, and ILDA has embarked on the last year of the decade!  Or the first year of the next decade!

With budgets tightening everywhere, we appreciate your membership more than ever, as we all advance the art of laser display.

As President, I periodically review my notes and collections from previous years ILDA activities, in order to “not forget” the roots and intentions of the organization. At this time, I wish to revive some habits from past years that are appropriate.

 

Laser effects cheered at Eurovision

Andy Faulkner of  Laser Shows srl in Romania created laser effects for Alexandra Ungureanu, a contestant in the 2010 Eurovision song contest. The lasers start at 1:42 into the video below. You can hear the audience cheering and applauding the effect. The lasers get more active starting at 2:11.

 

50th birthday (?) of the laser

Some websites such as MTV and Gizmodo are calling today the 50th birthday of the laser. You see, on March 22 1960, Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow received their U.S. patent on the maser in optical wavelengths (IR, visible, UV), which we now know as a “laser”. Of course, since the patent was filed almost two years earlier, on July 30 1958, you might think THAT date should be the big celebration date of the laser’s invention.

And others might point to the first recorded use of the word “laser”, in lab notes made by Gordon Gould on November 13 1957. Since his notebook predated Townes and Schawlow’s patent application, Gould and his lawyers fought for nearly three decades to overturn the March 22 1960 patent. He finally won his legal battle in 1987 with the issuance of U.S. patent 4,704,583. Ironically, since laser technology had progressed so much since 1960, Gould’s patent royalties were much more valuable due to the 30-year delay than if he had originally filed in 1957.

So when is the laser’s 50th birthday? There is a big difference between inventing something on paper — even at the Patent Office — and having it actually work. The first working laser was demonstrated by Theodore Maiman on May 16 1960. Since that is the first time visible laser light was shown in public, May 16 1960 is probably the best date to pick as the laser’s “birthday”.

The key drawing from the first laser patent approved

 

GM scans lasers onto windshield, to show road hazards

General Motors demonstrated an “augmented reality” system that projects laser lines onto a car’s windshield. The lines can mark the edges of the road at night, highlight traffic signs or show where a destination is located. The laser is projected by scanning technology (e.g., it is vector and not raster). According to Physorg.com, “the GM head-up display was created by Superimaging and uses a windshield made of a special glass coated with transparent phosphors, which are clear synthetic materials that glow red or blue when stimulated by tiny UV laser beams bounced off mirrors bundled together near the windshield.”

GM's laser-projected windshield display shows the road edge in low-visibility conditions. Note the curving line ends, showing where the beam begins and ends drawing the line segment.

According to information at Superimaging’s website, their “TransPlay” laser projection system uses standard galvanometer scanners (3o,000 pts/sec speed on the ILDA test pattern) with an ILDA interface so it is “compatible with laser show controllers from Pangolin, Riya, and many more.” A photo of the projector shows it to be a box about 3″ x 4″ x 1.5″, with an attached lens about 2″ long. The other key part of the GM system is MediaGlass optically clear film. It has phosphors suspended in it which glow under UV light. GM is using the two-color MediaGlass film which glows blue under 405 nm light, and red under 365-375 nm light.

The augmented reality portion of GM’s system uses sensors, both visible and infrared, to detect objects outside the car, and cameras inside the car to detect where the driver is looking. A computer then extracts important information such as road edges, cars in the driver’s blind spot, animals at the side of the road, road signs and important buildings or locations along the way.

The demonstration system would not be ready for commercial use before at least 2016.

The system has received widespread press; two sources for more information are Popular Science and Physorg.com.

 

The ultimate laser pointer incident…

Humor conglomerate “The Onion” has a March 15 2010 story on the ultimate laser pointer annoyance. Quoting unnamed sources, the Onion describes how a laser pointer aimed skyward in 1997 has now hit a planet 13 light-years away. Unfortunately for Earth, the planet’s inhabitants have the power to do something about it:

“What is that irritating dot?” Zoraxian Emperor Fi’ar Shal Shoka communicated in a telepathic message…. At press time, irritated Zoraxian military personnel were hard at work building a giant megalaser designed to incinerate the source planet of the irritation.

 

Laser TV is “the best 3D solution out there” — Steve Wosniak

There is a very interesting article from Engadget, about a new large-screen laser-projected HDTV which was engineered by former laser show producer and ILDA Member Chris Stuart.  Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called it “the best 3D solution out there” according to Engadget.

I had the pleasure of working with Chris in 2001, at the Detroit Auto Show where the laser show was controlled from a hidden platform directly beneath three 1960’s-era Ford GT racing cars being throttled at full blast — the loudest thing I’ve ever experienced. At the 2008 ILDA Conference on the Carnival Imagination, Chris showed ILDA Members deep-blue Necsel diode lasers, which his then-company Novalux was working on for laser video projectors.

Chris Stuart shows a 6W deep-blue laser to ILDA Conference attendees

The Engadget article goes into great depth about Chris’s current project, a 103″ laser-projected 3D HDTV from his current company HDI where he is Director of Technology. The article describes watching 3D content and playing videogames on a 97″ prototype that has the screen in one room and the laser optics in another. (The final 103″ version will use “a custom curved optics solution that will bend and direct laser light within a 10-inch deep cabinet.”)

 

Laser history: How “The Terminator” laser pistol was made

Remember the first Terminator movie, when Arnold Schwarzenegger used a handgun with a laser sight? That was in 1984, back before laser gunsights became popular. In those days, low-cost lasers were still helium-neon filled glass tubes requiring high voltage (and “low-cost” was hundreds of dollars).

Recently, gear site Ars Technica ran into the designer of Terminator’s laser gunsight, a man named Ed Reynolds who is with SureFire, a company specializing in tactical flashlights. He related how, in 1978, he had put a laser on a .357 Magnum for SureFire: it was “very expensive, and we highly modified the weapon”. For the 1984 movie, he made two props. One used a working laser on top of an AMT Longslide handgun. There was a hidden cable that ran up Schwarzenegger’s coat sleeve, to a power supply and a switch hidden in his non-gun hand. Arnold himself had to turn the laser beam on and off.

The second gun was a non-working prop without the wire.

Although the gun became an icon (it was used in the movie’s poster), Reynolds only got a few promo items for his trouble. Oh, and a credit at the very end of the movie. Fortunately, he has a good attitude about the experience, noting “I got to benefit because I could say, ‘Hey, I did that!'”

For laserists of a certain age, it is a reminder of the day when lasers were a lot more exotic and difficult to use, and when seeing a real laser beam on-screen was rare.

 

Laser harp used by pop singer in NYC performance

The New York Times had a short article about a singer who uses lasers, including a laser harp, in her performance. The singer is “Little Boots”, the stage name of Victoria Hesketh, who is “clearly an expert in a certain kind of space-glam, technological camp.”

New York Times writer Ben Ratiff noted in the March 3 2010 article that she played the laser harp on “her song ‘Earthquake’ by moving her hand among the streams of light; each time she blocked one, it triggered a synthesizer pitch, and she could alter its tone by lowering or raising her hand on each beam.’Earthquake’ isn’t much of a song, but that was a beautiful display. It made you feel light. ‘I’m basically obsessed with lasers,’ she admitted, chattily, when the song was done.

There are more pictures at a website called Brooklyn Vegan; scroll down to the bottom for most of the laser pics.

Tech blog Gizmodo was not impressed: “I just don’t get it. Let’s just stick with the normal instruments, shall we?”

 

400 watts of lasers back The Who, during Super Bowl XLIV halftime show

From the ILDA “Member Shows and Projects” page:

Lasers featured prominently in one of the most-watched events of the year, Super Bowl XLIV in Miami. On February 7, 106.5 million U.S. television viewers saw The Who perform at halftime, backed by over 400 watts of laser beams from 16 sources on the field and in the stage. The lasers were produced by Laser Design Productions of Markham, Ontario and Las Vegas, who had only 8 minutes to set up their equipment.

Fourteen Pangolin laser control cards were networked under the main stage. Eight full-color lasers were positioned on the field. Eight additional lasers including four 50-watt YAGs and four full-color air-cooled lasers were located upstage of the New Orleans Saints’ bench.

Click for larger image

The show was programmed by Doug Adams and Jason McEachern at LDP’s Markham, Ontario office using Light Converse previsualization software. The initial laser effects were designed as a “classic green laser look” reminiscent of The Who’s pioneering 1970’s laser shows. Later, full color lasers transitioned into purple, red, white, blue and amber/brown, choreographed with the standard stage lighting.

For much more detailed information, download Laser Design Productions’ Super Bowl press release. (Photo credit: Touchdown Entertainment Inc./Brad Duns.)