VIBRANCE at Noor Riyadh

Artist Bruno Ribeiro assembled a team of highly specialised creatives to invent a one-of-a-kind, large-scale interactive installation for Noor Festival, Riyadh.

When French multimedia artist Bruno Ribeiro contacted Alex Le Guillou to lead real-time visuals for his project for Noor Riyadh, an annual light and art festival hosted by Saudi Arabia’s capital, he had a clear vision for precisely the kind of interactive installation he’d like to make. The duo created a shape-shifting work that used a variety of inputs to produce a unique experience for each participant.

After hearing Ribeiro’s initial brief, Le Guillou proposed a graphic system that would react to various inputs, including movement and sound. The combined system would offer guests a visual “instrument” with which they could generate personalised audiovisual works based on recorded data translated from visual variants of differing moods and intensities, using transparent LED light fixtures and interactive video from Notch.

With the added help of Creative Technologist Charles Sadoul, the team built the visual components in Notch, then used grandMA for show control and Ableton Live for audio playback and processing. Guests would speak into the microphone, and the signal would be transformed into a musical sequence  accompanied by visuals driven by a depth camera connected directly to Notch.

Le Guillou found Notch particularly useful in quickly enabling a wide variety of aesthetics while collecting equally varying data. He could also use Notch to expose parameters for control by other OSC programmes, which allowed for freedom for the onsite teams to make adjustments up to the last moment.

“Notch’s overall flexibility enabled us to quickly propose and test different ideas for the space. Its ability to record and play back depth camera footage became instrumental when testing the interactive installation as a whole, resulting in a highly entertaining and collaborative process.”

Alex Le Guillou, Real-time Visual Artist

Additional press coverage:
LIT Lighting Design Awards, Riyadh Art.

Credits
Client: Molten Immersive, Noor Riyadh
Concept, Design, Music & Art Direction: Bruno Ribeiro
Producer: Marie Dussart
Light Designers: Alex Hardelet & Victor Lacombe

Creative Technologist: Charles Sadoul
Real-time Visual Artist: Alex Le Guillou
Production: Havas Events, Noor Riyadh & Royal Commission for Riyadh City