STARFIELD GALAXY

Live Oak Campground, Santa Barbara County, California
Starfield Galaxy with haze machine on – photos by Ethan Turpin

Starfield Galaxy

The theme for this years (2014) Lucidity Festival was “Universe”. As the head of ambient lighting for the festival, I wanted to make an abstract of a galaxy for part of the main roadway. It needed to be at least 200 feet long and give the sense of millions of stars. I looked over a variety of options then Jonah Haas, one of the founders of Lucidity Festival, hooked me up with Bruce Beeley of Lasersandlights.com. I knew about the type of lasers that Bruce had and got very excited. Bruce agreed to bring 7 Sprights and 5 LS20Gs. The former makes static starfields, the latter creates slowly moving starfields. I knew that if I set them up right the moving lasers would make everything feel like everything was in motion. To place the lasers in just the right locations, I had my crew strap 30′-40′ lengths of bamboo (thank you Bamboo DNA) into the surrounding trees so their ends poked out over the middle of the road. We attached the lasers to these and flooded the entire length of the road with points of green light. I knew that when a vehicle went through it the ensuing dust would make it three-dimensional. When Bruce told me he’d also brought up a powerful hazer that would create this effect..well, I was overjoyed. On Saturday and Sunday nights we set it up. The results were…and I don’t use the word lightly…awesome! I got my Galaxy and then some.

Reviews of Starfield Galaxy on Lucidity Festival Facebook page

Richard Wesela: Totally awesome!!!

Sugar Bean: Vapors in the light were uhhhhhmazing

Alec Everhart: Lazer forest

Andrew Germer: I called it lazer hallway and went in circles for fun

Chelsea Lyon: My favorite thing to explore at night!

Allie T.: this was one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever experienced!!! i will never forget late late night spacelacing in there when suddenly i entered the jedi matrix training simulator program

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