HOLD TIGHT
Throughout my time at university, I worked within a collective group of eight people under the name Hold Tight. Our aim was to create unique installations for events within Manchester. We’ve worked with Pangea, High Hoops at Mantra warehouse and created our own event at White hotel. In the early days, we created a string installation at Pangea festival using lighting & string and erected a structure around the stage in the shape of a mask. The surface of the mask was utilised as a surface for projection mapping, this created a visual and musical experience.
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HOLD TIGHT x HIGHHOOPS
Our first big event was at Mantra Warehouse collaborating with High Hoops, a disco/house night, we were paid to create an iridescent installation that would be above the crowd. We used coloured organza material, due to it absorbing light effectively. We attached each colour of the material onto bamboo sticks, which were then hung from steel bars near to the ceiling using fishing wire and secured the fishing wire with duct tape. We turned all the lights off and projected different patterns and shapes through the layers of material. is energised the projection of shapes to feed and flow through the material creating a never-ending effect. When seen from different angles the installation generated a different aurora.
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Throughout this project, we came across multiple obstacles, such as attaching the material to the bamboo. We used a glue gun as it was the easiest fixture for attaching organza to bamboo, a benefit of this is the glue also dries clear. An additional obstacle arose relating to the materials, when glueing the material to the bamboo, keeping the whole length of each piece the same size was very difficult, it took four people to attach each piece. At Mantra Warehouse, when putting the installation together the main struggle was that the material had to hang from very high up and there were 30 pieces of material to be hung. This Installation took three evenings to fully complete.
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The aim of this installation was to create a piece of art for the crowd that is visually pleasing, interactive, stimulating and complimented the vibrant music. I feel we successfully accomplished what Hold Tight set out to do, overall the group was delighted with the results. I feel this aided my development as a designer in various ways, particularly opening my eyes to the realisation that any piece of design is not going to look amazing when you first set out to create it, but when you play and alter the lighting and begin to learn about different materials and how they create different effects. You then realise that lighting and materials are your best friend in the design world. I’ve also gained knowledge on how to work in big spaces and within a team of people. This can be challenging due to different personality’s clashing. If we were to recreate this installation, hanging the material in different shapes could create different effects, or to create shapes from wood, then pull the organza tightly around the shape and staple it on, this could create shimmering shapes that could hang while projection mapping onto. I don’t think using bamboo was the best solution, as it wasn’t perfectly straight, although it was very light. Using a different material to replace the bamboo would be effective, we were on a tight budget so bamboo was a coinvent choice at the time.
HOLDTIGHT x KORRIDOR
Our last event was at the White Hotel, we decided to put on our own night so that we had full control over operations. We had Korridor fly from Sweden to play, who specialises in atmospheric minimal techno. Our main installation of the night was to create a structure around the stage space, then attach black voile material tightly using hooks, so when projecting onto the material it will absorb the light, but you would be able to see the music producer through the visuals. We also had a visual artist that was timing the projection mapping, so the projections were in sink with the music.
We had to hire projectors that were 3000 lumens bright so the brightness was intense enough for the installation, the room also had to be blacked out for this event, so the main attraction was pulsing projections. The brighter the lumens in a projector isn’t always better though, for example for a home cinema the 3000 Lumens would be too bright on your eyes. For this event, the projectors needed to be brighter to add the fine details of the projection mapping, because the space was 10 metres in length it was essential for the light to transcend the space. The human eye will perceive the brightness of the image based on the light output of the projector and the reflectiveness of the material where the light is bouncing back.
This is something that has developed my knowledge as a designer, maturing my understanding of lighting.
