Vancouver Vectorial Elevation By Beth and Scott!

There's an art instillation in Vancouver which is called Vectorial Vancouver. It's basically a series of high-powered searchlights that are positioned astride False Creek and English Bay, providing a light show each night over downtown. Now the really cool thing about this, is that if you visit www.vectorialvancouver.net you can actually create your own lighting display, send it in, and then in less than 4 hours, your design is actually on display in Vancouver!

Check out the ones Scott and I designed!

Scott's:

Beth's:

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One Month to Go!!

Starting to look like the Olympics might be coming to town...

It’s hard to believe that, as of yesterday, there is only one more month to go before the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics! I still remember watching the announcement that Vancouver had won the games way back in 2003….but fast forward 7 years, and they are almost a reality…wow…

With 30 Days to go, we’re essentially ready to go. Oh sure, there are the minor things…a couple tickets to still sell back, double check this reservation, remember to pack that, but we’re 95% of the way there. It’s all fine-tuning from here until I step on the plane February 12th!

From what I’ve been able to surmise from pictures, it really looks like the ‘Olympic Makeover’ is in full-swing in Vancouver. I suggest you swing on over to Gamesbids.com, where there is a good thread on “The Look of the Games”

The big thing for me over the next month will be to now find a way to mentally switch from ‘planning’ mode to ‘excited’ mode. I’ve been so involved with planning this all out over the last year and a half, that through the process it almost feels like the actual event is really never going to happen. The planning and preparation becomes the event itself, and you lose sight of the fact that at the end of it all there is a kick-ass trip planned… When you start planning to go a year-and-a-half before the event, you always thing of the Games as being way off in the future, and I just need to realize that things aren’t that far away anymore!!

I’m not sure if that makes sense….but it’s about turning the line on a spreadsheet that says ‘Men’s Hockey – CAN v. USA’ into…HOLY CRAP I’M SEEING TEAM CANADA….at the Olympics….On Home Soil…From the 10th Row…

I guess I've just watched the promotional  videos one too many times to get really pumped up by them anymore:) I guess I'll just have to upgrade to the real thing! I know that when I step on that plane February 12th, I'll be ready and rarin' to go!

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Olympic Rings in the Fraser River

Alright…here’s a strange one. The Canadian Olympic Committee announced that during the Games, they will be placing a large floating logo in the Fraser River…just offshore of the Richmond Olympic Oval:


Looks pretty cool eh? So whats so weird about that you ask? Looks perfectly natural...

Well…thats cause it is natural.....its going to be made out of Cranberries…yes...like the things you eat...

I kid you not...

Link

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Vectorial Vancouver

I’m not normally one of large scale public art, but one just announced today for Vancouver 2010 seems rather exciting. Called Vectorial Vancouver, a series of high-powered searchlights will be positioned astride False Creek and English Bay, providing a light show each night over downtown.

It all sounds very cool actually...

Rendering of False Creek/English Bay

From the press release:

Starting at dusk on February 4, 2010, 20 robotic searchlights will create a quiet canopy of light in the night sky above and on the sparkling surface of English Bay below with designs created by people around the world and delivered via the Internet. Called Vectorial Elevation, it is the first time the internationally celebrated work of art will be displayed in Canada and over a body of water.

The 10,000-watt lights will move and create patterns silently from locations in Vanier Park and Sunset Beach that cover an area of 100,000 square metres and be visible within 15 kilometres of the city’s downtown core, stretching to Richmond, the peaks of Cypress and Grouse mountains and freighters and boats on the water.

The coolest part is that apparently the sequence of the show will be designed by 130,000 members of the public. Again from the release:

Visitors to www.vectorialvancouver.net can design how the lights will move, their angles and how they are clustered in timed sequences to create their own patterns for the world to see. A personalized webpage will be automatically created for each participant to document their design. Organizers estimate 130,000 different patterns will be created in the 24 days the project operates from dusk to dawn.

I don’t think the links to create the show are actually up yet, but I’ll probably check it out once they are.

Special stuff like this really will make Vancouver more of a party zone and celebration site during the games. Hopefully there are similar things to come!

Installation Location

Previous Installation in Mexico

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Coal Harbour Olympic Rings

Just a quick follow up on the 100 Days post....a video of the Rings lighting....

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100 Days to Go!!

Onto the final stretch!

As of yesterday, there are a scant 100 days to go until the Games start. I’m trying to not really get too ‘into the mood’ until things get closer….100 days is still a long time to draw out anticipation. But it’s a big milestone, with a few notable unveilings that were attached to it….

Coal Harbour Olympic Rings

Yesterday VANOC floated out a second set of the large LED Olympic Rings into Coal Harbour. These rings are basically the twin of the set placed at Vancouver Airport about a year ago.

According to press, the location was chosen for a few different reasons including placing them against the skyline as a backdrop, their proximity to the media centre, and of course, by the need to ‘protect’ them from protesters. Pretty hard to access something in the middle of the harbour.

This second set of rings are supposedly going to feature in a light-show whenever Canada wins a medal.

Overall I like them, and their placement. We have to take a fair number of ferry trips across the harbour to get to the Whistler/Cypress transportation hub, so hopefully we’ll be able to see them somewhat up close.

NBCOlympics.com

Also yesterday, NBCOlympic.com got a large overhaul. I don’t like it quite as much as the VANOC web overhaul, or still as much as CTVOlympics.ca, but its still pretty good.

Biggest Con is the regional restrictions on viewing videos (ongoing pet peeve). Biggest Pro is the mobile alerts and widgets offered. I really hope that closer to the games CTV, VANOC or anyone ‘Canadian’ will offer up similar features.

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Building Wraps

When I was in Salt Lake City, one of the favourite images I saw was of the downtown core all ‘decked out’ in Olympic livery. This isn’t the exact image I saw (will probably never find it), but it gives you the idea:


I love this image so much because it highlights how much of an ‘Olympic Village’ gets created in the downtown. I can’t wait to be right in the middle of it all come Vancouver. Our games will probably be even better in this regard than Salt Lake’s were, just because our venues are much more centralized.

Anyways, reason I bring this up, is that at gamesbids.com, there were some images posted of two of the first building wraps for the games:




That’s one huge Canadian Flag on the Georgia Hotel. The second image is of ‘The Bay’ in downtown Vancouver…which is the Olympic superstore. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the buildings…and Vancouver as a whole…will look like in a couple months!

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