Mutek is a unique festival that celebrates the inspirational power behind digital creativity while promoting the cutting
edge in electronic music and the digital arts. It originated in Montreal in
2000 and after expanding internationally a Mexican edition has taken place each
year in Mexico City since 2003.
The thirteenth edition of Mutek Mexico took place from October 19-23 and was one of the largest
to date with creative digital expression spread across ten locations around
Mexico City. Acts such as Hiroki Umeda, Richie Hawtin and The Field served up
the avant-garde in inspirational electronic music using Elation lighting setups
consisting of 60 Elation ACL 360 Matrix™ LED moving head panels, 14 Elation ACL 360 Bar™ LED
battens, and 80 Elation Cuepix Panel™ LED matrices. Serpro Producciones of
Monterrey and Power Led of Mexico City supplied the Elation lighting for the
festival while technical direction for Mutek Mexico has handled by Cesar
Coronado.
“Since the
venues we were using had a lot of columns and were not very tall we decided it would
be a good idea to cover the columns with a fixure that has many features in one
but also one that can stack on the floor and cover the columns from floor to top.
Our choice was the Elation Cuepix Panel,” commented Coronado, who specified all
the lighting fixtures for this year’s festival. Used in Play 1 & 2 and Foto
Museo Room B, each Cuepix Panel is made up of 5 x 5 30-watt RGB LEDs with
individual pixel control, which makes more creative effects possible. “Mutek is
very monochromatic in the programming of the lighting,” Coronado stated, “and
the Cuepix Panel’s pixelmapping ability, strobe and RGB color wash helped
us fill the room.”
The technical
director lit the multi-sided stage in Play 1 & 2 using ACL 360 Bar™ LED
battens that he placed on the floor. “The stage had three sides – front, left
and right – so that the audience could see the artist from
different perspectives,” he explains. “We created three equal faces of the
stage with the same amount of fixures on each side so that the lighting
experience felt the same from each side. The role of the ACL 360 Bar was
to delineate each side of the stage so we could create a complete
wall of light.” The high-output color-changing LED batten allows for unique moving
effects that you just can’t get with traditional fixtures. Coronado added, “With
the fixture’s continuous 360-degree movement we didn´t have any limits.”
In Foto Museo
Room A – the main room at Mutek – Coronado hung 60 ACL 360 Matrix™ LED moving
head panels on two scaffold structures to create walls of light and combined
pixelmapping and the fixture’s 360-degree continuous rotation with the power of
the LED lamp to create stunning looks. Using 25 individual 15W RGBW LEDs and
with a tight 4-degree beam from each lens, the ACL 360 Matrix’s continuous
rotation and individual pixel control make a variety of dynamic effects
possible.
Mutek is a
creative person’s delight and continues to be one of the most novel festivals
on the calendar. The 2016 Mutek Mexico festival drew large crowds and was the
most successful to date. Coronado acknowledges Festival Director Damian Romero,
who was an essential part of the creative process, as well as Alexis Laurence,
Production Designer of Foto Museo Room A & B, and Alexandre Péloquin,
Lighting Operator of Foto Museo Room A.
http://www.elationlighting.com
