HIVE, a specialist media control manufacturer, provided the software and media servers that powered the spectacular Dragonfly installation, a 13m-wide sculpture built around a repurposed military helicopter, transformed into a living, breathing audiovisual creature, at Glastonbury Festival, in the UK, June 25-29. Brought to life with projection, LED and lighting, the Dragonfly was designed by Arcadia, a performance art collective that deploys ex-military machinery on creative projects.
Other partners involved in the collaboration included AV supplier Cucumber Productions, LED screen hire company Video Illusions and content creators Astral Projekt.
HIVE’s new Beeblade Nexus media engines and supporting suite of advanced software tools were deployed on the project.
Each Nexus board supported dual 4K NDI inputs with alpha layers – enabling video layering and transparency effects. HIVE says this was essential to manage the real-time feeds created in Unity and TouchDesigner by Astral Projekt, which were blended with a pre-rendered, time-coded 10-minute show sequence dubbed the ‘Arcadia Dragonfly Show’.
The Dragonfly’s body – a decommissioned Sea King helicopter – presented an unusual projection surface. Irregular curves, protruding elements and a compact footprint made conventional video mapping techniques difficult. The addition of LED “eyes” and face illumination demanded tight synchronisation between projection, lighting and real-time visuals.
Replacing a previous rack-based system, HIVE deployed six Beeblade Nexus units housed in three ruggedised Nucleus enclosures. These were distributed across projection towers on either side of the structure and within the Dragonfly’s head.
HIVE’s software – particularly its Obj Map and advanced mapping tools, was used to handle the diverse demands of the design:
- Obj Map tool – mapped content onto the hexagonal LED “eyes”, importing UV-mapped geometry files created with 3D software tool Blender.
- Warp Grid tool – deployed for real-time warping and projection mapping onto the fuselage and tail.
- Pixel Map page – a new feature used to control LED fixtures for the Dragonfly’s facial illumination.
- Timecode support – HIVE’s Timecode feature tied the Dragonfly’s 10-minute programmed sequence together, playing back pre-rendered animation to the LED “eyes” and all projection surfaces.
Dave Green, CTO, HIVE, said: “With HIVE, we were able to replace an energy-hungry server stack with compact players that delivered the same, if not more, capability – but using far less power and at around a fifth of the cost.”
He added: “It’s still probably one of my favourite visual installations of all time. It just looks otherworldly – like something from an alien planet.”
Cyrus Bozorgmehr, head of creative comms at Arcadia, added: “The HIVE system ran content seamlessly to our eight double-stacked projectors, keeping everything precisely mapped and aligned in a busy 360-degree environment. It also powered our custom transparent LED video screen – made of over 200 tessellating hexagon panels – which formed the head of the Dragonfly and the DJ booth. Dave Green and Nigel Sadler from HIVE were great to work with, and it was a pleasure to have them on board.”
Look out for Installation‘s report on some of the AV tech deployed at this year’s Glastonbury in the July/August edition, available from July 25th, and a full report on the Dragonfly coming soon.
