This Freaky Installation At Vivid Sydney Is Broadcasting A Live Ta-ku Show

With Intel inside, amazing Vivid experiences happen outside.  

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In case you hadn’t figured from the millions of pictures of the Opera House in your Instagram feed, Vivid Sydney — the annual winter festival of lights, music and ideas — is underway for another year. There is a LOT to see.

For electronic music fans, one of the biggest drawcards on this year’s lineup is Perth’s Ta-ku. He’s a producer, but he also takes photos (including portraits of celebs like Questlove and Twitter oracle Jaden Smith), designs apparel, runs a barber shop, curates talks and helps other creatives get their projects off the ground. This year, he’s playing two back-to-back Vivid LIVE shows in the Sydney Opera House on June 3 and, unsurprisingly, demand has been high for both of them.

Luckily you don’t actually have to be inside the Concert Hall to experience the show. Throughout the course of the festival, you’ll be able step inside a giant light-and-music installation outside the Opera House called Sound Cells, which comes powered by Intel. On the night of Ta-ku’s shows, they’ll be streaming his set out live, complete with a visual feed so you can see what’s happening on stage.

“Essentially the idea was to create a system that would crack open the Opera House and bring what’s happening inside to those outside” artist Joe Crossley told Junkee. Crossley created the Sound Cells together with Ta-ku, Intel, and the Sydney Opera House, designing the structure and getting Ta-ku and visual artist Sam Price to provide the soundscape and graphics inside. It’s kind of like an art installation and very pretty nightclub all in one — where everything is free.

On the nights leading up to Ta-ku’s performance on June 3, the Sound Cells will feature music custom-made by the man himself and will display some of his photographs, animations and other artwork. After June 3, the Cells will feature music from the show.

The technology behind all this is pretty cool in itself. Each cell was printed on recycled plastic using a 3D printer that was operated by a robot (what). When the Vivid LIVE concert kicks off, they’ll be controlled from the Intel broadcast studios inside the Opera House, with the content streamed out via optic fibre. The lights are also audio-reactive; as music inside swells, so too will the lights in the cells. The result is a cohesive communication between the art on display in the Sound Cells and what’s going on inside the Opera House.

“The future of technology is pretty exciting,” Crossley says. “To be an artist inside that groundswell is pretty cool.”

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Sound Cells will be live from 6pm-11pm each night of Vivid Sydney, which runs from now up until June 18. On June 3, Ta-ku’s 9.30pm concert will be live-streamed both to the Sound Cells and via the Sydney Opera House’s YouTube channel.

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Intel and the Sydney Opera House bring you Ta-ku’s beats from the inside, to the outside. Running from May 27 to June 18. Check out intel.com.au/vividsydney and be sure to use #IntelatVivid and #intelinsideSOH in your posts.