NOOR RIYADH FESTIVAL

When the artist and good friend Christopher Bauder called me in 2022 and asked me to help him with his project for the NOOR RIYADH Festival, I immediately said yes, as it sounded both like  a challenge and some good fun. AXIOM was a great success, we placed a 20m high pyramid in the middle of nowhere in the desert outside of Riyadh, adorned it with a bunch of moving lights, a sprinkle of mirror balls and a nice size PA. This was really in the middle of nowhere -we had to get a track built to access the site, and bring everything from electricity to water. In the serene beauty of the vast desert, with nothing in view for miles around, AXIOM stood out.

In 2023, Christopher was again asked to do a project, this time on a different magnitude and in Riyadh, as the highlight of the festival.
The city-wide DIALOGUE show transformed two of the most iconic towers on the Riyadh skyline into living characters that interact with each other and communicate through light and sound.
A record-breaking number of 485 moving lights, 72 LED floodlights and 4 ultra-bright lasers formed the technical backbone of this site-specific temporary light art installation. The close synchronization of the light and laser animations between the two towers and the ability for viewers to listen to the soundtrack in real time via their
phones anywhere in the city make DIALOGUE a unique and unprecedented technical achievement.

I was happy to assist as production/technical manager and general troubleshooter.
My thanks go to Havas as producers and 8 Bridges Events for their amazing last minute local support, Alex Würfel and ES:ME for the rigging skills, PRG for the deployment of 500+ Ayrton Cobra, Laserfabrik for the lasers and network system, the local and of course the foreign crews who worked tireless to make things happen, Artist: Christopher Bauder
Music: Chris Kuijten

Photos: Ralph Larmann