Off The Wall: UPDATED WITH PHOTOS
(Originally posted June 28)
I’ve decided that trying to say goodnight early in this industry is fruitless, and by early, I mean 11:30pm. But when you start making the rounds to bid everyone adieu at that time, you suddenly find yourself chatting another two hours.
But starting at the end of the night isn’t very helpful here, is it? Last night was the Barco event at Philadelphia’s Comcast Center, where the largest indoor LED screen (and a pretty high res one at that—7,000 Barco NX-4 modules and 10 million pixels, to be exact) is the center of attention in the building’s lobby. At 83′ x 25′, it’s sort of hard to miss.
You really have to see this. It’s a fantastic example of art and technology creating a stunning work of public art, and that’s just what it’s meant to be—no Comcast logos or branding in sight. In fact, it’s called The Comcast Experience, a name that probably does it a tad more justice than “the screen.” The content (which can loop unique combinations for up to two years, courtesy of the programming of Alan Anderson of Medialon) was created by David Niles of Niles Creative, who consulted on the project from its early stages and shot all the content in his New York studio.
The wall looks like wood paneling to match the rest of the lobby (and it really does look like wood paneling, not like a screen). Then, dare I say, out of the woodwork comes content (everything from a piano virtuoso filmed at various angles taking up the entire screen, to almost 1:1 scale people climbing the walls, to a Van Gogh painting that appears to seep out of the wall for its reveal). What struck me most about the presentation is that the content looks incredibly three dimensional, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. You can say I don’t get out much, but you really do have to see this. It has a 30% higher resolution than IMAX.
Dana Cory from Barco did a great job hosting the event, and I had a lovely dinner with Serge Nalbantian of Liberty Property Trust (partner of Comcast in this project), Laird Nolan from MIT, and Ken Romaine of Barco, followed by a tour of the control room with Alex Carru from Medialon and Guy Russel from Barco.
The project is actually on the cover of The Philadelphia Inquirer this morning, but nothing in print or on screen will do this thing justice.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
The Comcast experience is phenominal — though the model for large scale displays in architectural/public application remains fuzzy. In this instance, Comcast decided to give a gift to Philadelphia, and accordingly, there was no branding or logos — but this is an exception to the fiscal realities… LED displays are not cheap and they need to recoup significant revenue to be viable.
Can LED displays add to the revenue stream of real estate developers? How do we quantify the stream, and what content will ebb and what content will flow?
If the industry continues to work within the construct of a passive audience, the opportunity of large scale LED displays will be missed — it’s that elusive interactive component which will allow architainment (hate that term) to break out from the advertising pack. Of course, this challenges the tried and true advertising paradigm, but isn’t it about time?
When the content responds to the crowd and integrates the audience in a real and meaningful way, at that point we will have a something to work with. To engage the audience, rather than subliminally conquering, is the missing link between LED that is “a gift to the city” and LED that captivates an audience and channels revenue back to the investor through interactive rather than passive marketing.
In the short term, Philadelphia gets a splendid gift. In the long view, Comcast will always be seen as an early adopter of what will become a ubiquitous medium in the 21st century — thought he model still needs some tweaking.
Kudos to Barco, Niles Creative, MediaLon, Liberty Properties, Comcast and everyone else involved, for bringing the project from concept to fruition — Bravo!
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