Beam: Glastonbury Festival's immersive, multi-sensory laser projection experience

In collaboration with cartography specialists, cine, lighting and sound, NEC Display has provided its laser projection technology for the creation of Beam, an immersive and multisensory experience by the artist Wolfgang Buttress that could be enjoyed a few days ago at the Glastonbury Festival.

Far from the most lively and noisy areas of the famous Glastonbury Festival, who just celebrated Worthy Farm near Pilton (England) your edition 2019 (last year there was no) with a surprising staging in the so-called Greenpeace Field, a space to raise awareness about environmental problems.

This year, el artista de Nottingham Wolfgang Buttress, famous for his sculpture Hive at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, wanted to materialize in an innovative way the difficult situation of the honey bee with a multisensory and immersive sculptural experience called Beam.

To achieve this, accelerometers have been used (vibration sensors) to measure the activity of black bee colonies living on Michael Eavis' farm in Glastonbury. These live signals or algorithms were sent to the sculpture installation Beam that expressed them through light and sound effects, which has allowed the activity of the bee colony to be experienced visually and auditorily in real time.

This experience is complemented by a fluid and changing soundscape based on pre-recorded bee sounds created by the band BE, members of Spiritualized. Added to this was the already known Giant Rave Tree, an interactive tree 22 m high that houses a DJ booth, creating an environment to relax and disconnect from the hustle and bustle of the festival with art installations, relaxed music, comfortable seats.

To enjoy and learn about the proposal you want to transmit Beam, visitors enter the forest pavilion (30m diameter) through numerous trails lined with tree trunks and wildflowers leading to a clearing, in hexagonal shape 11m wide. The interior space is surrounded by lenticular wooden screens, 3.5m high, to create a fully immersive experience.

At night, the space is filled with striking projections in 360 degrees created with twelve PX1004UL laser machines from NEC Display (each with a power of 10.000 lumens), to liven up the looks of the hexagonal clearing with images of bee hives, high definition movies, magnetic resonance and thermal imaging.

“Our laser projectors provide the reliable performance needed to deliver this stunning exhibition piece,” explains Graham Kirkpatrick., NEC Display Solutions Technical Solutions Architect. We are delighted to work again in collaboration with the consultancy Cheers Lea in another fantastic project by Wolfgang Buttress, after our participation in his award-winning sculpture Hive a Kew Gardens a 2016”.

In this line, Buttress himself emphasizes that “the NEC laser projectors used in Beam have been essential in creating this multi-sensory experience.”, which highlights the existential challenges facing the honey bee. I wanted to use the best technology available to create a sense of magic and wonder, and these teams have helped make this happen”.