Grelle Forelle

Light installation for the Grelle Forelle night club

In December 2011, Grelle Forelle opened its doors at the Danube canal and quickly turned into one of Vienna's hippest electronic night clubs featuring internationally renowned artists every weekend.
We were asked to create a visual concept for the club which stands out from the numerous other night clubs which mostly rely on video projection set ups. The light installation is made up of different light types in each room.

STICKS
The installation in the Kitchen counts 288 custom-built cold cathode tube lights in RGB and white, each 50cm long. Four of these tube lights make up one cluster onto which a RGBA pixel is mapped. The clusters are randomly arranged on the ceiling. The Kitchen is furnished with a wallpaper by Italian artist collective Carnovsky which is printed in CMY colors and interacts with RGB light. Depending on the stimulus, a different layer is made visible and images are revealed.

NET + GRID
The main floor is equipped with 320 RGB LED strips spread across the ceiling in a wavelike wireframe structure. The light installation perfectly blends into the corporate identity by picking up on the aquatic theme and, at the same time, incorporating Grelle Forelle's symbol <><.
Also, a grid of 81 pinspots with sharply defined, narrow beams is installed on the ceiling generating a wood of light pillars.

BAR + LOUNGE AREA
All working tops, the ice tub and the hanging tray for the bottles in the bar area are uplit with LED lights that can change color on demand. By changing the color, a whole new look according to the needs of each event can be achieved. The vintage style cage lights in the lounge area at the rear end of the main room give off a warm glow through the carbon filaments. These lights go perfectly with the chic black leather furniture and create a pleasant ambience to chill out before continuing the night on the dancefloor.

BALLOONS
The mural in the smoking area was painted by young talented artist Marianne Vlaschits. "If I can't fuck, it's not my revolution" also evolves around the subject "water". Vlaschits was mainly inspired by her reading of “The arrival of Dionysus” by Burghard Dedner, in which the author draws comparisons between the Women's March on Versailles during the French Revolution led by the so-called “fishwives”, and the ancient Greek tragedy “The Bacchae” by Euripides. In between fishermen and figures of greek mythology, lights that take the shape of balloons are smoothly integrated into the painting. We removed the interior of the balloon lights and fitted them with custom controllable LED modules.

The software for the installation in the Main Floor and in the Kitchen which translates generative images into DMX-control signals was written specifically for this installation.The whole project was conceptualized and put into practice within less than 8 weeks.