Martin by HARMAN Lighting Solutions Dazzle Architectural Fans at Spectacular "Circle of Light" Festival in Moscow

May 05, 2016

Lighting designers and artists use Martin fixtures to produce light and multimedia show projections on the facades of historic buildings          

Martin by HARMAN fixtures illuminated the 5th International Circle of Light festival in Moscow for nine days. Several architectural landmarks of the capital city were used in a variety of multimedia and lighting installations aimed at transforming urban spaces into canvases for innovative works of art. Russian company LBL developed the concept of the festival, and the team collaborated with designers from gst.moscow to deploy a range of modern lighting solutions, including Martin fixtures, in order to implement their creative ideas.

Lighting designer Alexey Zhuravlev was tasked with managing the Circle of Light festival projects. He worked with the gst.moscow team to create a host of unique scenes for an event that drew 7.5 million visitors in 2015. 

Martin fixtures were used at a variety of locations and events, including an ice show featuring Olympic Champion Tatiana Navka and various halls at VDNKh (Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva), a general purpose tradeshow and amusement park in Moscow. The VDNKh is one of the most notable attractions in Moscow—it occupies more than 2,000,000 square meters and includes pavilions, fountains, a space museum and a Buran (spacecraft).  

Zhuravlev and Sophia Grishutina, Head of Euroshow Moscow’s Light and Rigging Department, overcame a significant challenge by converting some of the more ordinary-looking halls at VDNKh (No. 11 through No. 15) into truly eye-catching festival decorations. 

The lighting designer decided to highlight every line of the grid structure of Hall No. 11 with Martin’s MAC 101 fixtures. The compact size of the MAC 101 made them the perfect fit for the installation. Technicians did not have any mounting issues and were able to blend the fixtures into the background during the show.

“We created a unique geometric screen that completely changed the perception of the hall,” said Zhuravlev.  “When we directed the light from the MAC 101s along the hall, the audience could see the entire structure, which had a really unique shape. If the beams were directed to the right side, oblique lines created a wonderful motion effect.”

The design of the Hall No. 12 facade included a huge trapezium. The lighting designers decided to use LEDs to create a full screen that would serve as a striking and inviting installation. In addition, MAC 101s were placed at the bottom of the building to achieve an ambient lighting effect on the large screen.

“These fixtures supported and expanded the top segment of the screen in a really visual way,” said Roman Vakulyuk, a member of the gst.moscow lighting team, who worked on this installation. “For Hall No. 12, the possibility of changing a color mode in MAC 101 was really useful. I worked in the raw mode to get warm and attractive white or soft red colors that were the best choice for illuminating this unique architecture.”

Although the average designer might see the stark, plain white walls in Hall No. 13 as a challenge, Zhuravlev took advantage of the blank canvas. For this hall, Zhuravlev proposed a mix of high-powered LED fixtures with rotating lenses and four Martin MAC Quantum Washes were among them.

“Usually, when we’re lighting empty walls, we use gobos and patterns,” said Zhuravlev. “But, in this case, we decided to use the effects from the rotating lenses of two different fixtures. They created a psychedelic feel with truly spectacular looks. It was an experiment I’ve long wanted to try. The result was very bright, extraordinarily stimulating and highly unusual.”

The annual festival program also includes a VJ competition that is often difficult for audience members to find as the “Space” hall it is hosted in is obscured by trees and other installations. The problem was solved this year, however, by RUSH MH 3 Beams that drew attention to and lit the alley leading to the hall. Those fixtures were also deployed along with powerful MAC Quantum Washes to dramatically light the surrounding aircraft and rockets that acted as setpieces.

Zhuravlev credited the Martin fixtures with helping to bring this multifaceted production together in a way that streamlined a complex network of projects and kept hardware issues to a minimum.

“This was definitely a tricky project,” Zhuravlev said. “We had 11 lighting designers working on all different projects, which required a high level of coordination.”

Creative Concept: LBL Company (http://www.lbl.ru/)

Integrator: gst.moscow team headed by Alexey Zhuravlev

Equipment supplier and technical partner: Euroshow Moscow (www.euroshow-msk.ru)