INDIO, CA – More than 2,000 glowing interactive PixMob Zygote balls dropped from above onto the crowd during Arcade Fire's performance at the Coachella Festival in mid-April. The spheres used Montreal-based ESKI's PixMob technology, which transforms groups of mobile objects with light-emitting LED pixels, controlled relative to their location in real-time. The Coachella Arcade Fire experience, dubbed "Summer Into Dust, 2011," was inspired by Arcade Fire's song, "Wake Up," which the band performed as the balloon-like balls were released above the crowd.
The visual experience included waves of light propagating and rolling repeatedly from the stage to the audience, in synch with the music, effectively transforming the dark audience into mobile pixels in a giant video screen.
ESKI partnered with Moment Factory, Radical Média, and Tangible Interaction to produce the globes, ESKI also produced and choreographed the light effects designed by Chris Milk and the Moment Factory
ESKI's PixMob technology was previously used by Cirque du Soleil in mid-2010 during the launch show for the Microsoft Kinect computer game console, and Tangible Interaction's Zygote balls were also released during the closing ceremony of the 2010 Olympic Games at Vancouver, B.C.
