More spectacular than the Burj Khalifa fountain
The works on the reconstruction of the Museum of the History of the Zaporizhia Cossacks, which are being carried out as part of the complex renovation of the Khortytsia National Reserve, are still ongoing, and Ukrainian history is already coming to life strictly according to the narrative in the projections Expolight. The premiere of the light show called "Transformation through history" took place in August of this year, it was timed to the Independence Day of Ukraine.
The main reference from the customer was the musical fountain located next to the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai - a spectacular structure with a height of jets reaching 150 m, the system of which uses 6600 point and 25 color floodlights, as well as gas nozzles and smoke generators that create the effect fire and smoke. A complex mix of water, light, music, smoke and fire creates an unmissable spectacle that draws audiences to the tallest building in the world every day. The customer wanted to achieve this level of attractiveness of the Khortytsia nature reserve for tourists with the help of a light show.
The task was to create an informative and entertaining image installation at the same time, which, thanks to its uniqueness on a global scale, would become one of the new visual symbols of Khortytsia and a magnet for Ukrainian and foreign tourists.
In order to direct the eyes to the water, to the overflow of the Dnieper, which disappears in the darkness after sunset, the Expolight company decided to illuminate two huge rapids so that they, too, would become bearers of history
The location decides
The bar was raised quite high, but Expolight likes such challenges, especially since the second reference was the company's own project - a holographic Buddha statue in the New York "Buddha Bar", which the customer suggested repeating, but in the image of a Cossack. Expolight quickly abandoned this idea: "After analyzing the scale of the space - the Dnipro spillway, Dnipro HPP, we realized that no matter what sculpture is installed here, it will not be proportional to the area," - says the head of the Expolight company, Mykola Kabluka.
The decision was prompted by the landscape and panoramic views opening from the northern part of the island. Next to the museum is an artificial earthen hill - the Kurgan of Unity, over which the flag of Ukraine flies. It was formed during the construction of the museum in the 1980s from the soil that remained after the pit dug under the building. Even then, the designers assessed the visual potential of this area: by placing the hill on a natural elevation, they added about ten meters of height and thus increased the viewing radius, which was more than ten kilometers in all directions.
"After all, the mound is always about history, about the secrets of the past, and it was logical to materialize with the help of technologies, XNUMXD-mapping, collision effects, what the land of Khortytsy preserves"
From the hill you can see the Dnipro HPP dam, a panorama of the entire island and the wide Dnieper channel. "In our projects, we always start from the location. When I went to the roof of the Museum of the History of the Zaporizhia Cossacks, which is an observation deck, and the museum itself is located on the rocky shore of Khortytsia Island, and saw an artificial hill, it occurred to me to make it tell a story.
After all, the barrow, even if it is only a symbol in this case, because it was created artificially, is always about history, about the secrets of the past, and it was logical to use technologies, XNUMXD mapping, and collision effects to materialize what the land of Khortytsia preserves." says Mykola. Thus, the Mound of Unity as a dominant space with the necessary semantic load and ideal geometry at the very beginning of the development of the concept turned into the main screen of the future installation.
Mykola Kabluka: "There is no such thing anywhere in the world - not a single permanent installation with graphics drawn simply in the sky"
Mykola Kabluka, founder and chief lighting designer of the Expolight company
Earth, water and sky
Further considerations led to another theme that helped create a multidimensional structure of the show and ensured its uniqueness and scale: the hill represents the element of earth, the Dnipro represents the element of water, and the sacredness of the place itself can be emphasized by projection into the sky.
"In order to direct the eyes to the water, to the overflow of the Dnieper, which disappears in the darkness after sunset, we decided to illuminate two huge rapids - rock ledges, gray, powerful, age-old, so that they too become the bearers of history," continues the story of Mykola Kabluka. It was technically impossible to make a video projection in this case, so the idea arose to use lasers and vector graphics to create an animation on the stone thresholds, which will become part of the show.
Next to the Museum of the History of the Zaporizhia Cossacks, there is an artificial earthen hill - the Kurgan of Unity, over which the flag of Ukraine flies
Next to the Museum of the History of the Zaporizhia Cossacks, there is an artificial earthen hill - the Kurgan of Unity, over which the flag of Ukraine flies
The next step — the projection of video graphics into the sky — was a very bold idea from the point of view of implementation. But the brief of the project included uniqueness on a global scale, which means that the challenge was accepted without too much doubt. According to Mykola Kabluka, "there is no such thing anywhere in the world - no permanent installation with graphics drawn simply in the sky."
It was possible to realize the idea thanks to the development of Expolight, a super-powerful laser for the Dnipro Light Flowers project in Dnipro, which shines tens of kilometers into the distance. While experimenting with the laser then, Expolight took into account its possibilities to use in the future.
The hill represents the element of the earth, the Dnipro represents the element of water, and the sacredness of the place itself was projected onto the sky
After analyzing the landscape of the Khortytsia area next to the museum, Expolight specialists calculated the place where the equipment for creating a projection on the sky can be placed. The difficulty was that the effect is broken when moving away from the laser point, but the location of the viewing platform on the roof of the museum, its proximity to the main screen - the hill - made the task a little easier. The equipment was located at the foot of the platform and launched a laser over the hill into the sky.
"The landscape itself serves as scenery for the show: the island, the spillway, rapids, and all the elements of the production are tied into a single system and supported by sound," says Mykola.
The show is scheduled
Another important component of the show's uniqueness is its permanence - automatic switching on according to a schedule, as in the case of the musical fountain of the Burj Khalifa, but with other technologies that are not usually used on a permanent basis. It is about 3D mapping in the mode of daily broadcasts, which requires a much more serious engineering approach, automation systems and powerful servers.
This is exactly the kind of installation Expolight developed for Khortytsia, and the audience of the open-air music festival Zound 21, which took place at the end of August next to the museum, on the "Cossack Circle", became its first mass focus group. Up to 1000 spectators can gather at the museum's observation deck for the "Transformation through History" light show. The schedule is laid out on the museum's website and depends on the length of the daylight hours and the quarantine realities of our time.
"The landscape itself serves as scenery for the show: the island, the spillway, rapids, and all the elements of the production are linked into a single system and supported by sound," says Mykola Kabluka.
Personal media history
The show on Khortytsia has another feature — interactive. In an effort to introduce an educational moment into the installation, Expolight came up with the idea of making a web application that launches a short individual show on all three media. By scanning a mobile device with a light QR code that appears as soon as it gets dark on the concrete surface of the observation deck, the visitor enters the application, where he receives an invitation to start a personal media history and learn useful information about Khortytsia in four categories: the flora of the island, its fauna , the Cossack period and modern times.
After scanning a light QR code on a mobile device, the visitor enters the application, where he receives an invitation to start a personal media history and learn useful information about Khortytsia in four categories: the flora of the island, its fauna, the Cossack period and modern times. Then, entering the category, the visitor chooses an element of interest from several options, reads about it and starts a 30-second show with three projections and sound accompaniment
Then, after entering the category, the visitor selects an item of interest from several options, reads about it and starts a 30-second show that includes all three projections and audio. If several people have scanned the QR code and selected a media story to start at the same time, the program automatically creates a queue and tells each viewer how many minutes are left until the start of their show, additionally warning with a vibration and sound signal about the start. Both the light QR code and the mobile application are developed in-house by Expolight.
"For us, the object is always critically important, not just aesthetics or complex lighting technologies, but the message, the social impact. In this case, we managed to add an educational moment, which will be better assimilated against the background of an emotional impression," says Mykola Kabluka.
In order to achieve a high degree of audience involvement and fascination, Expolight used complex technological techniques, each of which is unique in its own way.
The key to bright emotions and spectacle, with which we started this story, is the immersiveness of any show. It is not enough for the modern viewer to simply observe what is happening on the stage. In order to capture him, immerse him in what is happening, it is necessary to engage as many visual and auditory receptors as possible. The light show created by Expolight amazes the viewer with its scale and play with natural elements. Under the musical accompaniment, the viewer's gaze shifts from the hill to the rocky rapids in the middle of the Dnieper, and at the climax of the show, it is transferred to the sky.
In order to achieve this degree of viewer engagement and fascination, complex technological techniques were used, each of which is unique in its own way. These are projections on geo-objects, vector graphics in the sky, and the launch of an individual full-scale show from a mobile device, and ensuring the operation of the installation in automatic mode.
It is nice to realize that the location of the light show, which has no equal in the world, is the Khortytsia National Reserve, and its creators are the Ukrainian company Expolight, which never gets tired of surprising us with its projects.
Text: Kateryna Oshemkova
