Syyn Labs had the pleasure of installing a new piece at the Santa Monica GLOW Festival this past Saturday – a beautiful, 100-foot-long double helix of colorful, synced lights.
There was over a man-year (more than 2000 combined hours) put into this project which used sophisticated custom software designed by our own David Guttman to control 512 computer controlled full-color LED’s, 32 LED controllers, 4 Arduinos, and 4 computers, with over 6000 wire interconnects and well over a mile of wire. This complex hardware configuration was masterminded by Chris Nelson and Eliot Phillips, based on a challenging design concept from the talented Eric Gradman who also developed a good portion of the support structure and final assembly.
(under construction and LED testing…)
Once operational, it took inputs from the music for beat-matching and/or VU metering, a wireless iPad, and our beautiful 22-button console (also built by Gradman) – sometimes all at once! At the end of the night, our spectacular DJ Matt Davis had not only moved the crowd with his awesome music, but the twin-computer-based system be designed had processed and sent 53,477 beats to our tempo-synced light sculpture between 7:30 and 2am, when the excited crowd got a little “too excited”, and we were asked to leave the music off until we shut down on schedule an hour later.
We’re REALLY proud of how well received it was. Our favorite part? When our DJ would occasionally let a song end in silence, and it would be met with thunderous applause and cheers from the crowd surrounding the piece – sometimes as many as 7 people deep on both sides!
(Being installed at the trellis on Santa Monica beach)
We’re planning to release a high-quality video, including a time-lapse of the build and operations. Until then, enjoy some of the videos that others took and posted online – mostly from the dramatic lengthwise view. A few of our favorites are here, here, and here.
Project leads Gradman, Guttman, Nelson and Phillips were supported by a herculean effort by Syyn Labs team members Dan Busby, Doug Campbell, Geoff Emery, Hector Alvarez, “Quin” Cabalquinto, Mat Heitel, Pehr Hovey and Richard Whitney and Sam Leventer, who put in many crazy late nights on this project. A very special thanks to Jennifer Jordan, Sena Koleva, Paul Grasshoff, and Kristy Hilands who pitched in at critical junctures. This really was a team effort.
Back in LA it was exciting times and Syyn Labs was really beginning to gain momentum. Not only were we working on a fun project that was paying our large crew hourly, but there had been definite progress on finding a new space to call our own. Meeting at Barbara’s Bar at the Brewery had been fun, but as we grew this thing into an actual company – that just wasn’t going to continue to work
Smash Labs was a local creative space, and was made up of a few groups, including Mutaytor which practiced there and used it as a wood shop. They had found a new space, just a few blocks away from the Brewery artist community (where I was living). In an exciting twist, it seemed like one of the warehouses within this new space (called Big Art Labs) was up for grabs and Syyn had first dibs. In a effort of neighborly love, we helped them move all their crap out of their old space. Of course not without finding some cool props to pose with along the way. Syyners pictured: Dick Whitney, Dan Busby, Jenda Michl, Me, Cousin Gilles d’Amecourt, and Mat Heitel at the bottom.
So it turns we’re just a bunch of characters that enjoy each others company and getting together to work, or create things that don’t yet exist. And maybe along the way we just might get paid, maybe in big bucks, or maybe as in this case, a thick wad of Karma dollars.
The amazingly sustaining part of the Syyn Labs and OK Go RGM music video Collaboration is the continued mileage we are both getting out of it. The video has had over 15m views at this point and from the Syyn Labs angle, we continue to get gigs and have had multiple gallery shows. The most recent, Syynterstitial (Part 1), was a one night, packed Tour de Force, led by none other than my cousin Gilles d’Amecourt. The entire front half of the A+D museum was filled with all sorts of contraptions that were featured in the video, from tiny lego stages to the spinning to the paint blasted suits and even the water glass playing guitar. In the back area, behind a thick black curtain put in place but our tireless supporter Quin, was our interactive artwork showcase: David Guttman’s projection pieces and Eric Gradman’s glowing “Standard Gravity”
The event attracted over 300 people throughout the evening paying $10 for an evening of live music, free drinks (served by wonderfully sexy bar tenders) and interactive fun. The quality of the people was fantastic, hammering home that between Mindshare and Syyn Labs, I am pretty damn good at creating social filters that attract awesome people – which is the entire reason that I started doing events in the first place, with the first Mindshare back in 2006.
Gradman, Sadowsky, Cousin Gilles (unslept), then Brent, Busby, Hector, Mat, Heather and others met out on a flat lake bed where 24 cars had been stacked in the layout of a piano: 24 b+w cars, one battery, tuned hors and synched headlights. Oh and Gary Numan to play the ‘Cargan’.
After a stressful build day everyone left and I camped out in the open desert with a tent I had in the back of my car. This action was much to the surprise of the entire crew who was pretty sure that as soon as darkness hits rattle snakes and scorpions were going to emerge from every rock and come straight for my tent. The fear that most people carry in this world would be truly comical if it wasn’t so depressing.
By the end of the following day Gary Numan would be flown in and we had to have it ready.
We did it, but not without significant challenge and lack of sleep!
Disney XD approached Syyn Labs to creation a station ID consisting of a Rube Goldberg Machine, incorporating objects that their target audience would identify with… This is what we came up with. And of course Adam had to be very careful when loading up the paint cannons:
Syyn Labs was formed in 2008 by a group of creative engineers who twist together art and technology. We build gizmos, whatzits, and interactive installations that encourage strangers to play together by lowering social barriers.
Our projects include ‘ArtFall‘, an interactive whiteboard; Rubens’ Tubes, sound-reactive fire sculpture, ‘Sonic Stalagmites‘, which allows people to ‘paint with sound’; and ‘CloudMirror‘, which uses augmented reality to bring your event’s badges to life. We regularly showcase new projects at our monthly Mindshare.LA event in Downtown LA.
We have presented our work at numerous corporate and social events and can create custom installations to suit your venue or public space.
The first Syyn Tavern event was met with excited reviews and successful installations from David Guttman, Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman – as well as the beginning of a great partnership with Matt Davis of Headtron. Lets play again soon!
OK, I might not have been at the taping of it, or at the launch party earlier in the week OR at the celebratory party tonight at LACMA but at least I dropped the jaws of a handful of backpackers in the northern Chile desert town of San Pedro de Atacama when I showed them OkGo and Syyn Lab’s video collaboration for “This Too Shall Pass”. In only 3 days the video has almost reached 4 million views!
Syyn Labs, LLC, a company I formed with a group of some of the brightest people I know in LA, worked on this video in a 2 story LA warehouse for the last few months. They slaved over countless takes to make sure that not only did it all get captured in 1 dipping and weaving camera shot, but it also went in time with the song! The video ends with a huge finale – AMAZING! Kudos to all involved!
It’s quite wonderful, thanks to amazing colleagues, both Syyn Labs and Mindshare,LA are doing amazingly in my absence. This is either a sign that I am good at building teams or that I should leave town more often! Hmm, ideally it’s the former with a healthy mix of the latter!
So, I’m heading into Bolivia tomorrow, and I know it’s certainly going to be the most challenging part of the trip so far. I’ll be heading through the Atacama, the driest desert in the world into one of the poorest of the South American countries. I already have a bunch of experiences to catch up on writing, and this 4 day journey through the through salt flats and desolate expanses, will certainly not leave me feeling uninspired.
