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Digital signage sends 'call of the wild' at the Empire State Building

Projection tech digital signage lit up the Empire State Building in New York City this past weekend, projecting digital light images of endangered species onto the building in an event intended to call attention to the creatures' plight.

August 5, 2015 by Christopher Hall — w, t

Digital signage sent out a special call of the wild at the Empire State Building.

Projection technology was used to create a towering event, more specifically *on* the Empire State Building in New York City this past weekend, projecting  digital light images of endangered species onto the building in an art event intended to call attention to the creatures' plight and potentially provide footage for a coming documentary, according to The New York Times.

The project was the brainchild of filmmaker and photographer Louie Psihoyos, director of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove," and Travis Threlkel, co-founder and chief creative officer for San Francisco-based Obscura Digital, which provides "life-size creative technology platforms for built environments, live events and new ventures," according to its website. Psihoyos's Oceanic Preservation Society collaborated with Obscura Digital and the Empire State Realty Trust, which owns and operates the building, on the project.

The duo called the event a "weapon of mass instruction," according to The Times, and used 40 stacked, 20,000-lumen projectors on the roof of a building on West 31st Street to project the images on the Empire State Building from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. this past Saturday. The animals were shown in a looping reel, projected in 5K resolution onto a space 375 feet tall and 186 feet wide, covering 33 floors of the building.

The event drew widespread attention in the mainstream media and spread like wildfire on social media:

 

¡Son tantas las especies en peligro de extinción! Se calcula que en solo par de décadas una tercera parte de los animales de este planeta desaparecerán si los humanos seguimos abusando de los recursos y contaminando a la Tierra. Por eso BRAVO #EmpireStateBuilding #NewYork por crear conciencia sobre el problema #ProjectingChange

A photo posted by Maria Celeste (@mariacelestearraras) on Aug 2, 2015 at 6:13am PDT

Watch a video of the night's event posted to YouTube by the Empire State Realty Trust:

Cover photo courtesy of Getty Images for The Oceanic Preservation Society.

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