Studio Echelman installed its largest, most interactive installation to date at the TED Conference’s 30th Anniversary in March 2014. The monumental aerial sculpture spanned 745 feet between the 24-storey Fairmont Waterfront and the Vancouver Convention Centre.
At night, the sculpture comes to life as visitors were able to choreograph the lighting in real time using physical gestures on their mobile devices. Vivid beams of light were projected across a massive scale as the result of small movements on spectators’ phones. In the daytime, the sculpture’s delicate form is subtle, blending in with the clouds and sky. The title, “Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks’, refers to a quotation from Shakespear’s “Julius Caesar”.
A complex matrix of 860,000 hand and machine made knots and 145 miles of braided fiber weighing nearly 3,500 pounds span 745 feet to make up Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks. Glotman•Simpson aided Studio Echelman with the building engineering involved with this beautiful sculpture.
Images: © Studio Echelman