Sil-vi is an art car created by Camp Bojon that debuted at Burning Man 2012. Camp Bojon commissioned Marco Cochrane to create an elegant and ridiculously strong truss frame. When I asked Marco how I could help, he tasked me with designing and building the six 30-foot long plumes. Admittedly, I was a tad daunted by the assignment. Weeks of research led to a small fiberglass manufacturer that makes a system of telescoping tubes. Each 30-foot long plume consists of five 8-foot long, overlapping fiberglass tubes with cascading diameters (1.25”, 1.00”, 0.75”, 0.50”, and 0.25”). Each plume slips into a 1.5″ diameter, 18-inch long steel tube that attaches to an indexed half-round piece of steel. The half-round steel is indexed so the plume can be lowered and raised for installation.
There are 150 RGB LEDs on each plume, yielding 900 overall. Project partner Hedley Davis programmed the software system to run through an assortment of image palettes, either randomly or via an Xbox remote when under the control of an operator. The imaging software controls all six plumes as well as the DMX lights on the car.
Photo credits: Tom Stahl, Eleanor Preger, Donna de Leon, Enrique Abreau, Scott Snell, Brian Jones, John McCrea, Everfest, I Hate Flash
