Lisson Art is amongst the most reputed Art galleries in the United Kingdom with its subsidiary in Milan. It was founded in 1967 by Nicholas Logsdail and Fiona Hildyard. It was one of a small number of pioneering galleries in the UK, Europe and the United States to champion artists associated with Minimalism and Conceptual art, including Sol LeWitt, Dan Graham,Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Peter Schmidt, Lawrence Weiner, Art & Language, John Latham, Peter Joseph, Lee Ufan and Daniel Buren.In the 1990s, a diverse group demonstrated a poetic conceptualism of image and language – Rodney Graham, Douglas Gordon, Jonathan Monk, Christine Borland, and Francis Alÿs – while other artists including Tony Oursler used the media of video and sound to create heightened visions of the social constructs of their age. A new generation has emerged in the first decade of 21st century – Allora & Calzadilla, Gerard Byrne, Santiago Sierra, Fernando Ortega, Sean Snyder, Tim Lee, Christian Jankowski – who explore the structures of representation and cultural value from global perspectives. At the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century the gallery has begun to work with another new generation of artists including Cory Arcangel, HaroonMirza, Rashid Rana and Ryan Gander.
Why was Wavetec’s solution required? Lisson Art Gallery needed a high-end display solution capable of parallel processing in order to exhibit synchronized videos to enhance the visual experience of the visitors and portray digital art through the latest cutting edge technology available for video display. In order to put on to display the best of the Lisson artists and charm the visitors, a sophisticated digital display was required. Wavetec, the Global market leader for providing ground-breaking display solutions, was assigned the task due to its reputation of staying engaged with technical challenges and coming up with the creativity that always holds a ‘wow’ factor. Technical Challenges Our technical team at Wavetec was aware of the mind twisting challenge that lay ahead of them. At first, a rough draft was composed in order to spot out the technical obstacles hindering the project so that they can be addressed effectively. The technical challenges were then categorized in two key divisions; hardware challenges and software challenges.
Hardware Challenges – Display a very high resolution (3072 x 2304) video Lisson Art Gallery demanded a video resolution for their Art exhibition which seemed unworkable for video display. Moreover, there were a very few graphic cards available which were capable of delivering this resolution and most of them were very pricey. The issues were critical and time was short. Above stated challenges claimed flawless high-tech solution and thorough research on the subject.
Software Challenges– Synchronizing video fragments
- Parallel processing was the prime obstacle when addressing the software issues.
- Another core concern that needed effective solution was handling the flicker while looping.Looping is the repetition of any segment; in our case a video fragment. We had to keep the video fragments in a loop as they needed to be recurred. Every time a video went through looping, a delay occurred and a flicker was encountered that disturbed the synchronization of all the fragmented videos.
- Furthermore, the high resolution video had to be looped in such a way that its recurrence had to be imperceptible.
Other Challenges And that was not it. Apart from the technological challenges that our technical team at Wavetec had to face, time management and competitive cost also posed serious hindrance in the successful completion of the project. The required time to develop and exhibit the project was narrow considering the magnitude of the project and the required development.
- Considering time as a critical factor and the project location which was in India, the production phase had to be conducted in China and the development and integration phase was to be carried out in Dubai. The installation and testing phase had to be conducted in India.
How Does Wavetec Address these issues?
Hardware
- The hitch in running a very high resolution video was addressed with 9 DLP Seamless Video Walls. The video was divided in nine (9) small videos with the resolution of 1024 x 768 each.
- Each of the nine videos was connected separately with a special Media Controller boxwhich was developed for this project to cater to the required resolution and to facilitate competitiveness.
- All Media Controllers were then connected to a single server in order to synchronize all the videos running in different parts of the screen. It made the parallel processing of numerous videos possible.
Software
- Since the project involved splitting up of the video in quite a lot of fragmented videos, distributed data processing was to be achieved with an unblemished technique. For that matter, a special software development team was set out to come up with a solution that caters to distributed data processing between viewing processors.
- As decided, the high resolution video had to be divided in nine (9) small videos with the resolution of 1024 x 768each. Specifically designed Media controllers for the project made the task possible. Each screen was capable of displaying its own video in such a manner that all 9 Video Walls displayed a different part of the video in the required resolution [{1024 x 768} X 9] simultaneously without any lurches to make it look as if a single video is being run on the entire wall.
- Furthermore, the entire canvas was broken into 4320 tiles and each tile was exhibiting a video of its own. All these 4320 high resolution videos were being synchronized by nice (9)Media Controllers (one for every cube) to make them look like one single image being displayed. Moreover, the project was programmed in a way that all these 9 media controllerswere controlled by a single server which made synchronization of thousands of videos possible.
Others
- Effective time management was as crucial as the project itself. Therefore, two (2) teams were working simultaneously for the production and development followed by installation and testing.
- The cost of the solution provided by Wavetec was 1/5th of the currently available off the shelf solutions which may or may not have catered to the requirements as effectively as we did. This made our solution notably competitive.
The venture was successfully concluded and set outfor deployment in India well within the time frame. Our competitive and high-tech team once again proved why Wavetec is the prime preference for the organizations around the globe when it comes to technology-driven projects, professional approach and pioneering innovation. Why was Wavetec THE BEST CHOICE? Global Presence Wavetec has a presence in more than 45 countries with various business operations across different continents. Reliable Display Solutions Wavetec is a leader in the financial display industry which requires highly sophisticated and reliable display solutions. Wavetec has proudly provided its solutions to 16 Financial Markets across the globe including Dubai Financial Market, Bahrain Stock Exchange, Santiago Stock Exchange and many others. Innovation Wavetec has an experience of satisfying various clients who wish to creatively display the content they have developed, be it the work of an artist or a high resolution video film made by a production house. Wavetec’s unique innovations have always been one of the reasons why clients choose them. ROI Considering Wavetec’s global strength and presence, it has the capacity to deliver projects at very economical costs which helps the clients in achieving ROI in a very short period. In this case the solution was to be installed in India so Wavetec chose its production facility in China, software hardware integration facility in UAE and its Installation & Fabrication facility from India. This entire project was delivered at a very economic cost only because Wavetec had its global muscle to minimize the costs at an optimum level.
