TIMELESS
Electric Forest Music Festival 2022 - Centerpiece of Sherwood Forest
Timeless is Electric Forest Music Festival’s Centerpiece installation of 2022, marking the 10th anniversary of the world-renowned festival.
Dark Moon Designs conceptualized, designed and fabricated the piece which has become our largest build to date. The structure stands at 34’ tall and 16’ at its widest and weighs over 3,000 pounds.
Design…
We have been attending or working at Electric Forest since 2013 and since that time we have forged a deep connection to it. Our inspiration for Timeless came in no small part from our experiences there as we navigated life.
For the 10 year anniversary, after a three year hiatus and a lot of complex issues and emotions worldwide, we wanted to bring something totally different to the Forest, a piece that would cause a viewer to ponder and create their own ideas about what lay before them, something that could symbolize the celebration of the past while ushering in the dawn of a new era.
The primary inspiration for Timeless stems from the mechanics of a moving light fixture. These machines have individual pattern and color wheels that rotate and overlap to create an almost unending variety of looks. As the design progressed, images of pocket watches, gears and gyroscopes filled the creative decks. Through many sketches and assessing the mechanics of each design, we finally landed on what all patrons of the festival experienced: A massive set of rings housing a futuristic version of stained glass, each disc depicting a vision of the Forest. Its sheer size was meant to create a deep impact and illustrate the grandiosity of the Forest.
Build…
Timeless was largely a metalworking project. Approximately 400 feet of steel and 650 feet of aluminum were used in the project. The sculpture stands at a height of 34 feet tall and is 16 feet at its widest. Because of its top heavy design, we fabricated the base and stem out of steel and the higher components, the rings, out of aluminum to keep the center of gravity lower than it appears. The base block is sized to fit three concrete ballasts which keep everything firmly rooted to the ground at over 9,000 pounds. All of the stock metal came in straight lengths between 25’ and 40.’ We worked closely with Roadrunner Fabrication to get all of the metal rolled to the correct curves. Most of the curves were achieved using a standard radius but the legs of the stem were actually drawn as splines with a constantly changing radius, making the rolling process more art than science.
The main ring is split into nine pie slices that surround a central acrylic piece designed to mimic stained glass. Each of the nine slices contain a circle within that frames an etched acrylic disk that, when side lit with LEDs, produces a levitating glow effect. All of the illustrations are by Natalia and they are loosely based in Art Nouveau. Once she finalized the drawings, Paul cut and etched each piece of acrylic using a laser. Strips of LEDs are embedded in each ring in each slice and all of the cabling runs along the inside of the piece so as not to detract from the look.
On paper this was a complex structure to build and in reality it was even more complex than we anticipated. This is such a massive piece that we couldn’t fit the entire thing in our shop, which at the time had 10’ ceilings. Additionally, the metal alone weighed 2,500 pounds and when much of it was assembled it had to be moved with machinery. Generally every build in the shop has a final assembly period where every connection is tried and tested to ensure success on site. Unfortunately, this piece was so large we could never fully assemble it before shipping. Instead, every joint and connection was tested in a horizontal orientation and in sections, never as a whole. This is when a detailed and accurate drafting really comes in handy. Though we follow the drafting as closely as possible, there will always be a need for some level of tolerance built in for human and machine error. Even a small weld may warp or expand a joint, moving the final piece an eighth of an inch too far for a bolt to thread.
There are about 275 bolts holding Timeless together. Of these 275 bolts, 215 of them are ⅝ by 8” long. The weight of the bolts alone was nearly 350 pounds!
In order to assemble the Centerpiece, heavy machinery was required. We essentially lived on a boom lift, usually fully extended, while a member of Art Operations of Sherwood Forest aided in a 10K forklift lull. Every section of Timeless has to be spanset to the forks on the ground, craned up to the team on the boom lift, then lowered into place and bolted in by the aerial crew before releasing from the forks.
Timeless gains its full structural integrity when its last pieces are drawn together and bolted at the very top of the piece. All of the forces within the structure are designed to distribute evenly through the support rings which are connected at the top and bottom of the main disk. Before the top joint is fully assembled, the piece is more susceptible to unpredictable forces like wind, so until the final joint was assembled, a spanset to the lull was put in place as a safety measure to keep the pieces from swaying too much.
After Timeless was fully assembled and we could all take a deep breath, Paul and James Gately (JG Design) spent the next few days programming the LEDs within the piece. A huge thanks is in order to Jimmy, who worked hard throughout the night to get all of the programming and mapping correct. Timeless ran on Resolume for this run, but it uses simple addressable LEDs which can be driven by Artnet or sACN.
Timeless stood tall on the path, the trees of Sherwood framing each side and the canopies hanging just above the gold rings. As the gates to Electric Forest opened on the first day, we watched as patrons filtered into Sherwood Forest, happy to be home, excited to reunite with old friends, eager to explore. We watched as people approached the Centerpiece, first in awe, next questioning its deeper meaning. They would post theories of its purpose, circle around it to get different views, and leave with a story in their minds. It is our sincere hope that everyone who gazed upon it walked away with a deeper experience and appreciation for what the Forest provides.
