LUCE estratti LUCE 323 _ Filibeck _ Steve Lieberman | Page 8

EDC, Las Vegas 2016
needs connected with the performance of DJs
who require particular setups or equipment.
Lastly, the stylistic characteristics of the festival
must be considered, these influence the design
of various elements. The design of each stage
is closely related to the location, the variables
change, depending on open air, a tensil
e structure or a stadium. Personally when
designing a new project, I let the world of
architecture influence me, or I draw inspiration
from cinema sets or geometric figures. I begin
with simple sketches on exercise books or on
a drawing tablet, where I outline the
fundamental levels of the stage. When the ideal
concept is identified, work at the computer
begins. The team that works with me transforms
the paper drafts into 3D models and realizes the
first video and photographic renderings, which
will be used for discussion with the client and
the professional figures who are in charge of the
other parts of the design. In general, a project
design for a festival or a club is an activity which
involves a large amount of multitasking, because
the creative process concerns a large number
of professionals and a large number of artistic
and technical variables which must be
considered and introduced in the flowsheet
so that they do not interfere with one another.
What types of technologies and equipment
do you count on usually?
First of all, I would like to point out that for me
technology is only one of the many instruments
that are available in the “tool kit”. It is not so
important to choose a product marketed today
or ten years ago. What I am interested in, is how
that product can be useful to me to reach the
result I am looking for. Having said this, I believe
that the new technologies have raised the level
of the productions, and I like to make a
balanced use of them. Lasers, strobe lights, LED
walls, flames, CO2 cannons … each of these
elements finds a space in my projects. Choosing
a type of projector each time offers the
possibility of applying different patterns on the
same stage, and in this way I can enhance the
design in a number of different ways. Consider
the LED walls, these can radically transform the
image of a stage, depending on the colours
and the images that they transmit. A completely
white LED wall allows you to obtain the same
effect as a blinding element; and projecting
particular graphics and animating them to the
rhythm of the music, instead, creates a
synchrony between audio and video and helps
to identify oneself with the song being played.
There is also a substantial difference between
a club and a stage of a festival. In a club you can
practically choose any type of projector you wish,
because it is included in the material to be
purchased in order to realize the location. In the
case of festivals, instead, all the equipment is
rented, great care must be taken with regard to
the number and characteristics of the products
that it is most convenient to utilize for the
construction of the show, and you need to deal
with the equipment that the services provider
has available, especially if, as in most of the
cases, the project includes more than one stage.
Do you have the possibility to discuss with other
DJs, to ask them for more information when
working on a stage or on a lighting project?
In 99% of the cases, the answer is no. Normally
the DJ arrives just a little before his performance
and climbs directly onto the stage, dozens of
metres away from our position. For this reason,
the operator managing the mixing console, also
known as VJ, besides having a strong sense
of rhythm, must know music theory very well
– sound, metrics, tonality… – and also
colourimetry and colour models. The VJ can
manage light effects with a precision of
milliseconds. He must literally sense what is
about to happen to the track that is playing.
From this point of view, the modular and easily
predictable structure that characterizes electronic
music is very helpful to the VJ. A good operator
is able to anticipate the trend of a track or the
next move of the DJ, giving the public the feeling
that, song after song, something grand to see
and to listen to is always about to happen.
At the beginning of this talk we spoke of an
avant-garde environment: what can we expect
from the future, according to you? Do you
believe that there is still space for new
innovations in this sector?
There always is room for innovation, and
technologies evolve constantly. Take for example
the LED walls, before they became the standard
for the reproduction of videos and graphic
elements, video-projectors were used much
more than now. And even before, videos were
not used at all! A new technology that is at our
disposal now is motion tracking, in other words
the possibility of following elements that are
moving on stage with a light. The technology
makes everything easier, economically and from
an artistic point of view, and it gives us the
possibility to find room for new ideas that could
not be realized before. In this period, I am at
work with my team for the next edition of EDC in
Las Vegas and we will have over 3,000 motorized
projectors and 3,500 sq. m of LED walls. To be
able to rely on so much material allows me to
design majestic environments that are extremely
involving, that I would never have been able
even to imagine some years ago, with different
technologies and more limited resources.
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