Operation Lucid - Ubuntu in London

My brother casts light and shadows for a living and we have been talking about a little project for a while. The release of Ubuntu 10.04 (aka Lucid Lynx) this week was the perfect opportunity to put the plan into action.

Mission

• Spread a bit of Ubuntu love to celebrate the launch of Ubuntu 10.04 a.k.a Lucid Lynx

 

 

 

  

 

 

Pictures released under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0

  
 Equipment

• 1 x suspicious white van
• 2 x spotlight
• 1 x temperamental generator
• 2 x hi-visibility electricity board jackets (urban camouflage)
• 1 x Canon Digital SLR
• 1 x clipboard

Location

• Barbican tower
• St Paul's (taken from Shakespeare tower)
• Tate modern
• National Theatre
• London Eye
• Millbank tower

Crew

• Jono Kenyon (Lighting Guru and photos), 
• Chris Kenyon (Generator technician)
• Jane Silber (Gaffer) 

The camouflage worked pretty well. We had a curious security guard at the Gherkin, which incidentally turns out to be difficult to project onto (shape and internal lighting)

We finished the last shot at 02:45 outside Millbank at which point we had a little excitement...

The initial Metropolitan Police response car screamed to a halt next to us followed by an armed response vehicle with sirens blazing.  On reflection, a white van parked at an odd angle with me holding a long black spotlight over my shoulder and pointing it towards the building was just a little suspicious. 

'So what sort of software is this?' elicited an elevator pitch on Ubuntu and the perplexed policeman cancelled the assigned air support unit.  Thank goodness I had my Millbank tower ID on me (Canonical's London offices are in the building). 

All in all, an amazing release and a fun Wednesday night.

Download Ubuntu - www.Ubuntu.com

Comments

[Børge A. Roum]

Awesome! Well done, guys! :)

[Matt Zimmerman]

Nice one!

[Kete]

wow, very successful!

[Syanide]

Awesome!

[nijaba]

I am amazed! Very very cool! Can't wait to do the same on the Eiffel tower :)

[Jef Spaleta]

Was there any serious fall out with the police over this? Is there a process by which you could have registered with the city or the police to give them a heads up about what you were planning to avoid the excitement?

I think its a cool guerilla marketting concept but I'm very wary to encourage others to do this sort of stuff unless they know what the legalscape is for this sort of activity.. exactly because it can come across as suspicious.

-jef

[Paul Hummer]

"You can, uh, ground that helicopter. It's just a bunch of nerds. Again, not terrorists, just nerds."

[Billy Cina]

I dare you to try that one of those stunts in Tel-Aviv!

[Amber Graner]

This is so cool! Thanks for sharing :-)

[Mackenzie]

This reminds me of the Graffiti Research Labs.

[RobD]

Someone nicked your idea! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8656578.stm

[Marc Diethelm]

Some of those make nice desktop backgrounds..!

[Damian Ondore]

Why Chris, I never had you down for a light-vandal. These are very nice, and I agree they make excellent desktop wallpaper.

Something deep inside me would have loved to have seen your mug-shots plastered over a newspaper article announcing your arrests, though.

Good effort.

[Damian Ondore]

I just remembered I once saw an attempt to shine a green laser ( in the shape of the Global gathering logo ) onto the moon. Though it looked impressive, suspected that we were really looking at a projection onto some distant layer of the earths atmosphere which happened to be right in line with the moon. Perhaps you can tell me whather this is really possible.

[Lucy Sherriff]

Just saw this. April 30th would have been Guy's 64th. He'd have loved it. :-)

Lucy