A large 12 segment display sits on the exterior of a shipping container.

Levi's Haus Miami

2019-12-05

For Art Basel 2019, Levi's built a city-block sized installation; a compound of more than 10 shipping containers. Each container featured a different installation, creating a massive experience.

FBU worked with Jam3 from the early stages. We were tasked with brainstorming on a jean drop delivery system for one of the containers. The ideas evolved over the course of 3 months.

FBU built a hardware and software system to control about 1600 LEDs - totaling about 25m - in real time at about 30fps. This allowed us to map video files to different strips of LEDs to create incredibly dynamic and engaging LED animations.

The installation consisted of 2 active parts. First, jean collectors would wait for drops on a giant custom 8 digit, 12 segment exterior display. The exterior would count-down to the drop time and then display custom characters. Visitors who entered the custom characters before the drop ran out of stock would be able to purchase a limited edition drop. The drops were collaborations between Levi's and legendary artists including Shepherd Fairey and Futura.

Purchased items were then delivered, hands free, to customers in the interior of the shipping container. Collectors would scan their QR code in a custom plinth. A custom designed dry-cleaner style conveyor, recessed into the ceiling of an infinity room, would deliver the garment to the collector. The infinity room was exhaustively edge-lit with architectural grade LED strips displaying agency designed video animation sequences to match the state of the purchase, drop countdown etc.

As always, almost all FBU tooling was built on web technologies, including various node applications. Lights were predominantly controlled using a heavily modified version of OctoWS2811 Controller and Processing.

Awards: