An experience like no other

1st Quarter 2018 Editor's Choice Other technologies

Arcadia Spectacular is a performance art community that combines sculpture, architecture, recycling, pyrotechnics, lighting and music into large scale mechanical landscapes and shows. The spectacular shows feature aerial performances, innovative technology and breathtaking mechanical theatre, engulfing audiences from every angle.

The brainchild of technical director Bertie Cole and creative director Pip Rush Jansen, Arcadia’s best-known creation is the 50-ton Spider, a transformer-like industrial robot. The mechanical artists have reworked ex-military machinery and industrial components into installations and 360 degree arenas, following a transformational and environmental ethos.

As the clock approaches midnight, it feels like the world is about to end. Standing in a sodden field in Somerset, a huge crowd is watching a vast mechanical creature erupt into life, shooting fire and spitting lasers like the vanguard of an alien invasion. The only clue that this vast intruder is not from outer space is the thundering bass heavy soundtrack that perfectly accompanies its movements. As a recorded message recounts how “the fate of those abducted by the creature remains unknown”, Cole and Rush Jansen survey the chaos that they have created.

Cole and Rush Jansen constructed their 50-ton spider out of reclaimed hardware from around the globe to create a unique festival stage for DJs and live theatrical shows. The giant fire-spewing arthropod is a 360-degree structure built from recycled materials – scrap jet engines, bits of helicopter, fishing boat cranes, satellite dishes, firemen’s ladders, an old cowshed, and much more.

The control booth/abdomen is composed of the turbine rotors from a TriStar jet engine, The legs began life as customs scanning machines, while the top muscles originate from Gazelle helicopter tails. Its eyes are spy plane engines and its claws are log grabbers. It features three hydraulic cranes that can fire jets of carbon dioxide ten metres, nine flame cannons that can shoot 15-metre fireballs and six RGB lasers running on a Pangolin control system. All the different disciplines have their own operating systems and they are synced to the music using timecode controls. The Spider’s soundtrack comes courtesy of a massive 230 kW Funktion One 360-degree sound system, complete with a 50 metre sound field, all linked to a mixer and two Pioneer CDJs, and set in a circle designated by flaming Victorian lamp posts. The creature is given a skin by video mapping. It takes four days to set up, four articulated trucks to transport, stands 20 metres tall and requires a minimum of 45 people to operate.

Cole and Rush Jansen first debuted the Spider in 2010 at Glastonbury Festival, Somerset and have been travelling the world with their upcycled extra-terrestrial ever since. Arcadia’s creature has become one of the most talked about spectacles of the festival season. It’s truly an immersive mechanical experience.

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