Artist Heather Shaw took to a Los Angeles rooftop to push the boundaries of imagination and AV engineering with the multimedia exhibit “Circuitry of Life: A Journey Through the Evolution of Technology.” Housed inside a 40-foot cube and sponsored by Red Bull at Night, the immersive event highlighted the story of technology development by blending projection, sculpture, and surround sound heard through a self-powered Meyer Sound system.
The event program started with African drumming and progressed through a string quartet, a rock band, and electronic music artist Jamie Lidell. The audience was then invited to create impromptu compositions by touching the walls and triggering percussive and melodic sounds.
“The Meyer Sound gear worked out great, considering the design required live sound reinforcement aimed into the cube from all sides, which presented huge challenges,” says John Baffa, the exhibit’s FOH engineer and system co-designer, who is also a Grammy-award winning engineer. “I couldn’t have been happier with the experience.”
Live music was reproduced by a multi-level surround system comprising eight UPA-1P and four UPJ-1P VariO™ loudspeakers and four-each 600-HP and 500-HP subwoofers. A separate system of 12 M1D line array and four UPM-2P loudspeakers supported the audio interactions. Four MSL-4 loudspeakers were placed outside the cube to deliver ambient effects. System drive and optimization was supplied by a Galileo® loudspeaker management system with two Galileo 616 processors.
“When you walked into the cube, you were caught up in the illusion,” says Joe Hesse, who provided system design consulting and worked alongside Sally Hesse at Woodland Hills, Calif.-based MSS Audio Services to supply the audio systems. “The surround sound was invisible, yet it was so clear and lifelike that you could believe it was the original instruments. It was done beautifully, and Heather Shaw was extremely pleased by what she heard.”
Daniel Tator of Los Angeles-based LAUNCH assisted in design and voicing, while Larry McCall of MSS served as systems tech and in-ear monitor mixer. MSS also provided Yamaha M7CL-48 and LS9-32 mixing consoles for FOH and monitors, respectively, and a selection of Shure and DPA microphones.
Artist Heather Shaw is CEO of Los Angeles-based Vita Motus, a multi-disciplinary design firm that has worked with Pharrell Williams, Janelle Monae, and M.I.A.