Sundowner

Concept

This design features several sections, displaying distinct parts of an overall earth-to-sky scene. The scene starts at the base of the sign with the existing sign supports, works its way upward through an underground root network, winds onto a road, which leads to the horizon, then up into the mountains, and finally into the sky where it ends with the sun, or moon, daytime-depending. The concepts I've employed were chosen to accomplish the following goals:

Celebrate the installation's home in New Mexico

Expansive desert landscape, under a Zia Pueblo sun symbol

Provide quality daytime and nighttime looks

The sculpture is visually compelling, even when no lights are on

Retain interest, even over many viewings

Lighting slowly evolves, with surprise animations, & a lunar cycle

Sculpture

A desert landscape is featured in the top sign shell that looks different in the day and night. In the daytime, the sky shows the deep blue of its Plexiglas. The sun is prominent, sending four metallic, silver-colored rays, in each direction, inspired by the Zia Pueblo sun symbol on the state's flag. Bottom-emanating rays appear to rise out of the distant mountains and road, implying connection between earth and sky. A stainless steel 'road' disappears into the distant mountains, which give depth to the horizon in rust-colored layers. At night the sun's rays, and deep blue sky are invisible. The sky is dark, except for backlit stars, which twinkle through star-shaped cutouts in the otherwise opaque backing of the sky panel. The moon appears where the sun was, tracking the current phase of our real moon, by projecting through an automatically updating cutout into the center of the yellow Plexiglas disk. From under the outer ring of the sun, an evolving animated glow of lights play in the sky, highlighting the moon's place there. The road is visible by its animated edges, which periodically send the light of an invisible car out to the horizon. Its lights continue up into the sky, where they cause extra sparkles, in the ring around the moon. A glimpse into the underground, is represented in the bottom sign shell. The existing support structure is woven into the design here, working itself into the complexity of a root network -- as might be seen in an xray cross-section -- and leading the viewer up into the road to the horizon, and beyond. Made of corrosion-resistant metal, the roots run in multiple layers above a rust-colored earth backdrop, leading from deep in the earth to the surface. At night these root layers glow with life, shown in an evolving, backlit lighting scheme.
Hanging below the bottom sign shell, is an info box. This element conveys the context of the current scene, innocuously, subtly describing the scene without stealing attention. It displays a short message such as the moon's phase -- Waxing, Waning, New or Full -- during main lighting scenes, and when a special animation sequence plays, it is announced here as well -- Chime! (on the hour), Ding! (on the 15mins), New Day (On 12am), Noon (On 12pm), Dawn (at sunrise), Dusk (at sunset).

Lighting Elements

The bulk of the lighting in this design uses full color LEDs that shine backward and out of various layered elements, reflecting against the backdrop, and out to the viewer. In some of these elements, the LEDs are individually controllable, allowing animation of the lighting to play out on the sculpture, to show movement, or to evolve through distinctly different looks. The moon and the stars are backlit elements, shining through shaped cutouts and colored by the Plexiglas they shine through. The "info box," a small alphanumeric display described above, is implemented in directly-viewed, diffuse, LEDs. A mechanical, or electronic, light 'blocker', or casts a shadow on the moon to indicate the current phase.

Lighting Design

The lighting design for the piece is designed to evolve over 28 distinct "main" scenes, one for each night in the lunar cycle. These scenes evolve slowly, with a limited number of twinkling, and/or moving elements present.
Several "special" scenes, containing more rapidly evolving animations, periodically replace the "main" scenes. These highly visual shows are like little treasures, occurring at "special" times, like the chiming of a grandfather clock. One is lucky to chance upon one of these scenes, but will be hard pressed to witness them all. As such, the sculpture will continue to surprise, time after time, long into the future.

Smart Lighting Engine

The system that drives the lighting in this piece is a "smart" (network connected) device. This helps 'future-proof' the investment into this installation with a built-in ability to communicate across the Internet. This enables innovative uses for the installation that were not originally envisioned, that can generate publicity, encourage interaction or otherwise add value to the piece.

Examples include:

• Crowd-sourced lighting designs
• Online games with elements that play out on the lighting of the piece
• Interactive control via sensors, etc.
• Direct control from an iPad, or other software tool/system
• Remote viewing / web-cam support
• Remote system maintenance and lighting scene upgrades