At the height of the industrial revolution, Bradford’s dominant position within the northern textile industry earned itself the nickname “Woolopolis.” Some two centuries later, a group of enterprising locals have undertaken an initiative to celebrate the city’s past and look forward to its future with Bradford is #LiT.
A festival of art and illumination, Bradford is #LiT aims to transform the West Yorkshire town’s post-industrial cityscape with unique light installations ahead of its bid to become Europe’s Capital of Culture in 2025.
Towering high above the Bradford skyline, the chimney within the former Albion Mills complex provided the ideal canvas upon which to highlight the wonders of one of Bradford’s industrial relics. To implement the resulting installation, entitled Tapestry of Light (one of the most visited landmarks during the two-week festival), Chris Beardwell and his team at Pro Audio Systems (PAS) incorporated four Chauvet Professional Rogue 1 Outcast BeamWash luminaires to accent the structure.
With the chimney proudly standing at a height of over 50′, it was decided that the very top section of the chimney would be illuminated in order to give a beacon-like effect that could be seen from miles around. The team at PAS decided to position the Rogue luminaries on all four corners of the chimney, thus illuminating both the contours and the vertical areas of the distinctive Victorian-era construction.
“The Rogue fixtures proved incredibly efficient with regards to their ability to project bright wash effects onto the white surface wrapped around the chimney,” commented Beardwell. “What’s more, the narrow beam angle combined with wide zoom allowed us to maintain a large degree of flexibility, which was absolutely necessary given the challenging dimensions at the top of the chimney.”
Another key element of the concept was to incorporate an immersive color experience onto the chimney’s four facades. Thanks to the fixture’s combination of seven 45W RGBW inner LEDs and 12 RGW outer LEDs, the interplay between both sets of light sources with their stunning color mixing capabilities enabled Beardwell and his team to exploit the extensive palette, thus awarding the surfaces of the chimney with an almost tangible materiality.
“The Rogues proved more than capable of washing the large surface area with beautifully consistent colored light,” continued Beardwell. “In the dark of the night, the primary colors from the RGBW chips had such an amazing impact. Aside from that, the full range of colors achievable through mixing also allowed us to create a variety of different color combinations that looked great as well.”
Given that one of the main challenges involved in illuminating the chimney was working around the difficult rigging conditions, PAS were able to capitalize on the relative light weight (20lbs) of the fixtures, ensuring that they could be mounted safely and in time for the exhibit to start. Working with another local business next door to the Albion Mills complex, the PAS was able guarantee an end-to-end waterproof electrical feed for the installation, safe in the knowledge that the IP65 rating of the Rogues were up to the job of weathering the elements.
Although the exhibit itself was initially planned to be limited to two weeks, in light of the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Tapestry of Light, the venue (Tapestry Arts) has decided to keep the system in place for the foreseeable future, much to the delight of Beardwell, his team at PAS, and all who believe in the city’s future.
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