ARCHITECTURE

Buckingham Palace light show breaks world record

July 4, 2012

One of 32 record-breaking animated mosaics projected onto Buckingham Palace (Photo: Bex Walton)

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A series of striking illuminated animated mosaics projected onto Buckingham Palace has broken the Guinness World Record for the most artists working on an art installation.

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The installation combined online photo-sharing and photo mosaic software as well as some clearly rather powerful projection to throw striking mosaic animations onto the palace's front facade; mosaics which in detail were composed of self-portraits from over 200,000 contributors.

Artist Ross Ashton worked with Boris Glazer using a customized version of Glazer's Mazaika...

In all, 32 mosaic animations including large portraits of Queen Elizabeth II were projected using 24 Creative Technology video projectors. Artist Ross Ashton worked with Boris Glazer using a customized version of Glazer's Mazaika image mosaic software, to compose animated mosaics from self-portraits of children aged between four and 16, individually uploaded to photo-sharing website PhotoBox.

The installation, titled Face Britain, ran for three nights at the end of April as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations. The project was developed by the Prince's Foundation for Children and the Arts.

Sources: Projection Studio, BBC, Mazaika

About the Author

James is a graduate of the Open University, with a B.Sc. in Technology and a Diploma in Design and Innovation. After a decade in building design engineering, he side-stepped into writing about green tech and the environment. When not clattering about the web, he listens to early 90s hip hop, writes bad haiku and ponders the merits of an English three-man seam attack. All articles by James Holloway Follow @jamesholloway