Robe gets monumental in France

The Monumental Tour is a brilliant and innovative visual and musical concept initiated by DJ and music producer Michael Canitrot and visual activists AV‐Extended in conjunction with French cooperative bank Credit Mutuel … which encompasses unique streamed electronic music performances and collaborations with epic, iconic and outstanding monumental sites all around France.

Lighting designer Cédric Davignon of Bordeaux‐based creative practice Electron Libre Design was delighted to design lighting for the first digital gig of the tour, staged at the impressive Phare des Baleines (Lighthouse of the Whales) on the Ile de Ré, which is off the west coast of France near La Rochelle.

Cédric chose to work with 10 x Robe Spiiders and 13 x MegaPointe moving lights to create his lighting design which complemented stunning large‐format projections beamed onto the newer of the two Ile de Ré lighthouses, transforming its octagonal tower and base building below into a magical kinetic canvas for the performance.

Cédric elucidates that the goal with lighting was “very much to support” the video mapping and reinforcement of the music and video. He wanted to add more depth to the overall picture and energise the interior of the lighthouse making it “come alive” with the help of the Spiiders which were located on the ground in front of the building.

Working closely with the impressive content produced by Jeremie Bellot and the AV‐Extended crew, Cédric utilized the Spiider’s Flower Effect to create ‘panning’ effects that picked up and accented the movement of the projected visuals. “Running the fixtures in mode 6 enabled some great undulating ring and propeller shapes,” he explained.

MegaPointes were selected for their sheer power and versatility. With 12 positioned – 6 a side – on the roof of the lighthouse base building, they punched spectacularly through the night sky. "It's one of the few fixtures that’s so bright you can see the beams clearly without any fog,” he commented, adding that while the mist from the sea spray provided some natural atmospheric enhancement on the evening of the event, this was in no way guaranteed! The thirteenth MegaPointe was deployed on the ground aligned with the geometric centre of the lighthouse a few meters away from the building.

It shot directly up the tower illuminating the 6 centrally positioned windows that grace the elegant mast. Cédric also created other interesting MegaPointe effects utilizing the multi‐faceted prisms and the gobo beam reducer to maximize the volume of the light.

Cédric programmed and ran the lighting using a grandMA2 console, and the event’s lighting equipment was supplied by Groupe AES with video delivered by the Bordeaux branch of event technology specialist, Léni.

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