Playhouse at Liberty Hall

This Wednesday is the launch event for something really special taking place in Dublin next month. As part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, Daft.ie present Playhouse at Liberty Hall. Playhouse will transform Dublin’s tallest building into a giant digital canvas for all of us to play with and animate our thoughts across the city skyline.

From the 24th of September until the 11th of October 2009, Dublin's Liberty Hall will become a 50 metre, low-res, digital screen powered by 100,000 low-energy LED lights that operate in full 24-bit colour. The LEDs have been installed across the 330 windows of the south and west faces of the building effectively turning each window into a pixel for the giant display. From Wednesday (26th August), members of the public will be able to download a special bit of software that allows you to create animations (with sound and music) and submit them to be broadcast on Liberty Hall.

The 100,000 LEDS in use are super-efficient, and the whole project has a tiny power consumption. During the project each floor of the installation will use less energy than a standard kettle. The narrow strip of LEDs are installed along each window frame with a small control box. These control boxes then connect to a central computer through the existing CAT5 network in the building, therefore avoiding any additional wiring.

Ahead of the project the folks over at The Bubble have produced a behind the scenes look at exactly how all of this will work. This exclusive footage from last Wednesday (19th August) shows the LED system being tested for the first time. John Callaghan and Julien Clancy can be thanked for this great footage. The music they have used is from Solen.