Project Illuminate
Celestial Pancake - Vivid Sydney 2019
Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay, Sydney
24 May 2019 - 15 June 2019
Written by Tsz Kin (William) Liu on 23 May 2019
Celestial Pancake is our sixth year of involvement with the Vivid Sydney festival (fifth time with a light installation). Since the branding launch of Project Illuminate during Synergy (Vivid Sydney 2018) project, we have pushed our creative and technical boundaries to make this artwork bigger than our last year’s Synergy. The project is fully supported by UNSW Sydney.
Celestial Pancake is a suspended audio-visual installation that visitors can walk under. It is composed of a four-meter radius ‘ceiling’ with fiber optics and an evolving four-point soundtrack. From afar, the whole terminal is bathed in washes of light, drawing people in and encouraging them to pause reflectively. Set to alternating colour palettes inspired by space phenomenon that enchanted us as kids, the installation transports a slice of the sky and brings it to us on the ground.
Fun Facts of this project, we have used: 17,500 LEDs, 10km of wires and running it with only 2 power plugs.
The Project Illuminate for 2019 is formed by three major teams, the art & design team, technical team and administration team. The student project group consists upwards of 90 students who participate in artistic design, engineering design, manufacturing, operations and marketing.
Production of our artwork at the UNSW James N Kirby Makerspace. Image: Tsz Kin (William) Liu
Project Manager - Joshua Sun
Secretary - Teresa Feng
Head of Marketing - Taiyue Tan
Marketing Assistant - Tsz Kin (William) Liu
Art & Design Team Director - Dylan Yikwah Goh
Concept Lead - Jasmine Tan
Render Lead - Bettina Zhang, Nathalie Tun Barreto
Interactive Media Lab Advisors - Genevieve Collier, Ryley Edwards
Art & Design Collaborators:
Anakha Menon, Christopher Yang Wang, Danae-Irene Kyriakaki, Dhwani Sahetai, Kaveri Gopalakrishnan, Krishna Adka, Nishant Pandav, Polly Rise, Selina Chan, Tongzheng Zhao, Xiao Fang, Xiaowei Luo
Technical Team Director - Dylan Sanusi-Goh
Electrical Lead - Aly Virani
Senior Electrical Engineers: Anthony Feizi Sobbi, Luke Jackson
Electrical Engineers:
Alfred Yeh, Anthony Leung, Bethany Hoyt, Ching Ting Li, Christopher Harris, Christopher Tran, Cristian Bernal, Danika Luichareonkit, Dunya Vasic, Felice Tan, Jessica Phe Li, Jungbin Lee, Junji Moey, Kevinly Santoso, Lakshan Perera, Madeline Younes, Minh Duc Duong, Nhu Dinh, Prithvi Guntha, Rachel Feng, Samantha Choy, Samantha Mesia, Shevaani Rams, Stephanie Liaw, Steven Kassiou, Taban Khurram, Tavishi Makhija, Tristan Ranee, Xiaowei Luo
Mechanical Lead - Michael Wu, Prithvi Guntha
Senior Mechanical Engineer: Matthew Payor
Mechanical Engineers:
Beryl Li, Daniel Wong, Eric Lin, Havish Krishna, Jeremy Low, Jonathan Hribar, Junji Moey, Kathy Fan, Kelly Yi, Lek Hong Fong, Louis Wong, Lucas Pun, Luke Simmonds, Nanqi Chen, Rosanna Liu, Royi Yu, Sanjaya Stenly Hoo, Yash Kedar, Yasmin Manovel, Yonghao Lu, Yu Ning Oliver Long
Software Lead - Mahima Mandal
Senior Software Engineer: Inura De Zoysa
Software Engineers:
Alison Truong, Alvin Cheng, Daniel Fan, Elizabeth Willer, Isheeta Sinha, Kevin Chen, Kevin Zhang, Micheal Mamansala, Nathan Ng, Onkesh Sharma, Pheobe Zhou, Sergio Mercado, Stephen Leung, Xavier Poon, Zixin (Cindy) Zhou
Left: The Team Leaders. Image courtesy of UNSW Engineering / Right: Team photo during the major working day. Image: Tsz Kin (William) Liu
Our heartfelt thanks go out to the following organisations for their hard work, without which our project would not have been possible.
UNSW Engineering, UNSW Art & Design, Arc @ UNSW Ltd (under 2019 Student Community & Development Grants scheme)
K&A Electronics, UNSW Built Environment: Design Future Lab, UNSW Making
Ryley Edwards & Genevieve Collier from UNSW Art & Design: Interactive Media Lab
MAKE CLUB at UNSW Art & Design
Port Authority of New South Wales
Val and the team from Tri Point Rigging
Morgan and the team from Event Engineering
Timothy Spohr, Indi Belle, Tony Fahr and the rest of the team at Destination NSW and the NSW Government
Celestial Pancake - Vivid Sydney 2019 Website
UNSW Illuminate (previously known as CREATE Project Illuminate) - Facebook Page
Our Behind the scenes at UNSW, produced by UNSW
UNSW shines bright at Vivid Sydney | UNSW Newsroom
Under the Celestial Pancake: student’s shimmering Vivid installation | UNSW Art & Design
Vivid Sydney 2019 Bump-In at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Image: Tsz Kin (William) Liu
We thank the partners for their support!
