Turning SF's Bay Bridge Into a Giant LED Display

waderoush writes "It may be the biggest art hack ever: a project to install 25,000 individually addressable LED lights on the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. New York-based 'light sculptor' Leo Villareal was in San Francisco last week to test the vast 'Bay Lights' art installation, which will officially debut on March 5 and last for two years; Xconomy has photos and video of Villareal running the light show from his laptop. To optimize his algorithms and figure out which patterns would be most interesting or arresting, Villareal needed to experiment on the bridge itself, says Bay Lights director Ben Davis, who has raised $5.8 million for the project so far. 'This has never been done before in history — literally debugging software 500 feet in the air, in front of a million people,' says Davis."

Comments

debugging

[girlintraining]

Debugging isn't really interesting just because you do it in the air. A lot of people do that on longer flights and call that "Tuesday". On the other hand, the endless potentials for hacking this thing to display something obscene are going to be nearly irresistable to a certain kind of person. You know the type I'm talking about. (dramatic pause)

Yes, you.

Biggest project? Really...

[MindPrison]

[quote] It may be the biggest art hack ever: a project to install 25,000 individually addressable LED lights [/quote]

Uhm, have you ever seen peoples Christmas led projects? Google it, check it on youtube. There are literally roofs made as video screens with millions of leds all over the house, all individually addressable.

Re:LED module?

[hawguy]

The hardware is Bay Bridge. The Chinese knockoff will be available around Labor Day 2013.

In other news today.

[Zeio]

The cost of living here is outrageous. The city, county and state are bankrupt. THe middle class is shrinking, schools stink, and the situation is dire.

Let's get Effie Trinket to drape lights all over the bridges and say oo and aaaah.

Unreal.