Blue Hour - a large-scale multifaceted immersive installation
Czech Republic - Robe embraced the vitality and essence of visual and aural collaboration in supporting Blue Hour, a large-scale multifaceted immersive installation staged in the Small Sports Hall venue at the Prague Exhibition Grounds for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ2019).
This complex work was developed from an idea originally conceptualised by the PQ19 event curators Marketa Fantova and Jan Rolnik. Their vision was an ambitious project to unite a series of innovative and prominent performance designers working in six separate but related disciplines - lighting, video / projection, experimental sound, tactile elements, VR and systems integration - under the direction and guidance of French visual artist, Romain Tardy.
Leading the Lighting Workgroup were Pavla Beranova and Fereshteh Rostampour who worked with and mentored a group of 15 students from the US, Chile, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Taiwan and Belgium, who had responded to an open call to assist in the creative and technical processes involved in lighting the work.
Robe made available 40 of its T1 Profile moving lights, 20 of the new T1 Washes plus 40 MegaPointe multipurpose fixtures and 20 CycBar15 LED battens which were utilised as the main lighting fixtures of the piece, rigged to a variety of temporary trussing and scaffolding structures erected all around the Small Sports Hall interior. Four Spikies were used for assisting the VR part of the Blue Hour experience.
Robe’s role in realising the project was co-ordinated by JJ Valchar, sales manager for the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The result was a provocative and stimulating ‘experiential’ work in four sections comprising layers of visual and sonic inputs including a full soundscape based on the rhythms of a circadian clock - a biochemical oscillator that cycles over about 24 hours in most living organisms which is synchronised with solar time.
The Blue Hour cycle ran for 24 minutes. Participants imbibed the six expressive creative disciplines and the four segments of time each coming away with a completely individual interpretation. It was the PQ19’s main creative centrepiece and was enjoyed by a diverse audience.
(Jim Evans)

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