Take one hideously ugly parking station in the heart of Adelaide and add 748 square LED panels and what do you get? 1066 square metres of nighttime lightshow entertainment.The Rundle Lantern, created by Fusion Innovation Agency for the Adelaide City Council, opened on October 24 last year. It now runs nightly light shows from 6pm to midnight, and while it’s not quite high-def, it is reportedly the largest such display in Australia.
Because it’s located on the side of a parking garage, the design required each square to offer enough room for ventilation, yet remain close enough together so that the entire screen would could create larger images. The end result looks pretty fantastic, even when the entire thing isn’t switched on.
I’m not sure the Rundle Lantern is worth making a trip to see, but if you happen to be travelling to Adelaide anyway, make sure you check it out.
[Rundle Lantern - Thanks Andrew!]
pottygob
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 3:26 PMI think its broken… again.!
So please dont come to Adelaide… nothing to see here.
kiah
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 5:01 PMYay!! Someone noticed how cool Adelaide is!! XD
Nikki
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 5:44 PMThis is great technology developed by adelaide agency Fusion. What a clever way to hide a car park
thatguy
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 7:18 PMNot led panels afaik, the cost for that would be pretty high.
From what i’ve been able to gather they are simply metal plates with a series of projectors that shine onto them.
Regardless, it’s far better than what it was before :)
junglejay
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 7:38 PMI remember seeing that butt ugly carpark when I was in Adelaide in 2007, this makes it look amazing!
Tom
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 7:51 PMNot LEDs:( they are just Peices of metal with lights shining on them
Would be cool if they were LEDs:)
Adelaide isn’t that cool though:(
good to see us featured on Giz though
lazydesi
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 8:26 PMAdelaide Rocks all the way
Long Live Adelaide
brad
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 8:57 PMIt was working when I was there a month ago, brilliant idea everyone was stopping to look at it (you can hardly miss it)
Dan
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 11:05 PMLol nah i love it, it is pretty cool when you walk past it on a big night out, cos it is pretty central to the bars and clubs
cleverclogs
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:42 AMOMG Adelaide got an article on Giz! Go RADelaide!
John Kirkham
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:58 AMThe sequence above is not the same as the current one now. The current one is quite trippy to watch, pretty mesmerizing.
rAdelaide
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 10:42 AMHere’s Johnny!!!
Tim
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 12:48 PMFor those of you who are commenting that they aren’t LED panels – you’re partly correct. The panels themselves are just metal plates but the lights shining onto them are LEDs.
John
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 2:40 PMhey Guys,
It does use LEDs 2 banks per panel. they shine from below each panel.
Also very energy efficient.
City of Adelaide
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 3:02 PMThe Adelaide City Council commissioned Fusion to create the display as part of a competition to enliven the intersection.
The display is made of 748 Aluminium panels with coloured LED lights that will soon be powered with solar panels.
The Lantern runs from dusk till midnight and displays artwork created during periodic competitions. Stay tuned via: http://www.rundlelantern.com.au
Randy C
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:33 PMA fellow student at UniSA has chosen a project to improve the lantern and it’s functionality. The current ideas involve a dance floor which removes squares one at a time to reveal an image, SMS functionality to view msgs from iPhones and more…
The trouble with the lantern is that the resolution is only 68 X 44 pixels. (Each square is worth 2 pixels). He would love some more ideas. And no NES and SNES games dont work either. He has tried that already!
Dave
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 11:12 AMPacman anyone?
Or Tetris?
Cheers
Dave
Ash
Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 11:54 AMMy mate and I did the “monstor” animation that went up on it: http://www.rundlelantern.com.au/simulator/
My sources tell me inteactivity is something that will come in time. Low resolution has benefits, you just need to think low res to exploitment.
Dan Monceaux
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 7:13 PMI was also one of the first wave of Adelaide artists outside of Fusion to create animation for this unusual public canvas. I wrote a blog post with all the technical information you’ll require to produce effective content for it on my blog, you can read it here http://blog.danimations.com.au/2009/02/04/rundle-lantern-an-artists-guide/ . The best results come when you treat it as a 34 x 21 pixel canvas, consider the corner placement and keep the contrast high between your colour choices.