Working with my frequent collaborators, Seth Kirby and Jason Batcheller, we created a 1104 pixel bespoke lighting installation for the Peabody Essex Museum's 2022 Pride Party featuring a DJ set by Ana Matronic.

In early February, Jason and Seth started developing creative for a light installation that both looks rad as hell and knows how to party. Seth went through eight different draft iterations to get the array looking chic. Another desire from our team was to make the PEM atrium feel intimate. With ceilings exceeding 35 feet, getting the space to feel like a night club was certainly a challenge, but one that we found an elegant solution for through our experience and creative skills. The long and short of it was to bring the lights closer to the dance floor without truss or any permanent fixtures. The lighting needed to be in the party, not above it. So we wanted to fabricate something that wasn't just flash-n-trash AVL, and a piece of art in itself. Drawing from Paco Rabanne, we created an LED array that evokes the classic metal couture of the 60s. You can see the design progression, what we drew inspiration from, and the development process below in the gallery.

After we finished building, testing, and banging the effects locally in Brooklyn, New York, we loaded the entire rig into my '99 Audi A4 station wagon and drove to Salem, Massachusetts. We installed the whole thing in two days – load-in, wiring, in-situ testing, and rigging. It was a blast tightening this thing like a drum, one trucker's hitch and bowline at a time. We were live with it for a Friday night DJ set, and we were ready to party from our second story balcony.

My role: documentation, creative/technical support, and installation. I used nearly all the gear in my kit to put this documentation together! Two different tripods, my gimbal, all my lenses, and my external monitor.

For creative support, I helped develop lighting chase sequences and other luma drivers to push the content on/off when coordinated with actual visual content. You can see some of that in action in the videos and photos below in the gallery.

Additional camera, narrative, and install support provided by the great Perry Hallinan.

Install support and technical liaison to PEM, and all around gem, Henry Rutkowski.

Alright, let's do the numbers 🎶

• 1 mapping / VJ media server

• 3 unique 10-meter long LED arrays

• 4 control surfaces

• 6 color source linear lights

• 6 ellipsoidal lights

• 16 astera lights

• 138 custom C&C milled LED fixtures

• 148 Luma control assets

• 200 custom made VJ assets

• 1104 pixels