Airstar was recently involved in a lighting project from notorious artist Rafael
Lozano Hemmer to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Ulm church tower spire in
Germany.

A gigantic balloon measuring six metres in length and animated by eight Panasonic
projectors was hung for three months in the middle of the Lutheran church nave.
The projected images provided a faithful representation of the activity in the sun’s
surface. The Hannover office of Airstar European Network (AEN) provided and
installed the balloon.

For this artistic performance, Airstar proposed a custom made air-filled Pendulair
600 balloon. Because of the historical dimension of the church and the need to keep
it intact, the artist was looking for a structure which he could project onto that
wouldn’t be too heavy. Once filled with 113m3 of air, the six metre wide balloon
weighted only 25kg.

Although it only took the AEN team half a day to install the balloon the preparations
took a couple of months. With 768 steps leading to a 150m high panorama, it is one
of the most popular structures visited in Germany.

Local event company, Mauer Veranstaltungstechnik, was responsible for the audio
and video equipment for this event. They are the ones who came up with the idea
of being able to move the balloon away.

Senior project manager Benedikt Partl looked after the whole project and was in
regular contact with the artist and his team. “It was such an interesting and
challenging project’, he recalls. “It was definitely not the kind of project you come
across every day. On top of the rescue plan, we had to make sure the conservation
of the monument was the upmost priority, and on practical terms, we had to
prevent outside light from interfering with the sun in order to have a striking impact
inside.’

Mauer Veranstaltungstechnik deployed molton stage curtains in both aisles as well
as the entrance hall.

On the projection front, Partl and his team built four towers, each hosting a double
stack of Panasonic PT-DX100EK 10,000 lumens XGA projectors with an additional
one hanged above the balloon in order to project on the upper part. All projectors
were connected via CAT7 cables and automatically calibrated colours. A MacBook
acted as the server to feed the content to the projectors. Each tower was fitted with
a PC, a Kinect sensor to capture the public whereabouts and a speaker for the live
content.

This artistic performance is the latest in a series presented by Rafael Lozano
Hemmer, who has been using Airstar balloons since 2010 when the artist was first
commissioned by the Light in Winter festival in Melbourne. At the time, the event
featured the world’s largest spherical balloon, already custom-made by Airstar.