Portland Winter Light Festival | Technicolor Dreamboat

February 24, 2020

Holst collaborated with The Good Mod to create an installation for the Portland Winter Light Festival. This year, our third year of participating, the festival featured 60 illuminated installations created by local artists and designers.

Technicolor Dreamboat

Located beneath the Hawthorne Bridge, this year’s installation, Technicolor Dreamboat, was a 12-foot, multi-colored wave that combined textiles, wood, and digital projections to create a dynamic installation visible from both sides of the Willamette River.

Concept

Our team began concept development in the fall of 2019. Drawing on the expressive nature of fabric, we conducted material tests to understand the qualities of tactility and movement and how to capture those qualities in a durable form. Through our testing, we discovered that a one-foot by three-foot faceted shape made of burlap and a non-toxic hardener would be the best combination to achieve our design.

Materials & Structure

Paper folding inspired the design, which was refined through iterative physical models. The flat burlap sheets were cast and dyed, then folded to create the wave’s angular elements. Dyed in a gradient of green, teal, blue, purple, and pink, the color scheme was inspired by the colors that illuminate the Tillikum Bridge each night. The composition was supported by a plywood structure, made of a two-way system of ribs modeled after the construction of boats.

45 yds of burlap, 10 gal of textile hardener, 150 oz of dye, & 10 sheets of plywood

Creation

The structure was cut using a CNC machine, then glued and finished with a clear sealer donated by Timber Pro. Color-changing LED lights were secured to the base, which brought out the fabric forms and bent with the structure’s ribs, casting shadows onto the underside of the bridge through the woven burlap. The MapMapper projection software, brought by The Good Mod, further enhanced this element. This overlaid a grid of specific control points onto the fabric screen, projecting patterns and images custom-fit to the installation, with the programmed projections responding to movement and sound to engage viewers.