INSIDE PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S COTTAGE

INSIDE PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S COTTAGE - Page 3

The AV gear in the Robert H. Smith Center includes three Alcorn-McBride DVM-HD digital video machines, a Panasonic TH-50PHD9UK 50" plasma screen, one Panasonic TH-65PF9UK 65" plasma screen, two Panasonic TY-SP5008W-K speakers, three Digital Projection iVision 20SX+ projectors, four JBL Control 26C ceiling speakers, four QSC CX-254 four-channel amps, one Rane graphic equalizer, and two Atlas Sound SACR-191 six-channel sound sequencer/controllers.

The initial design of the master control system called for a system of RFID triggers, omitted when a key hardware unit proved unavailable. Each guide relies on an AMX remote that
communicates with a receiver on each floor. He or she presses a button on the remote, which tells the system what room the guide is in, and sets up the media players in that room. Pressing a second button on the remote activates the sequence of media events in that room. Video Art produced the media for the cottage.

For the sake of preservation and demarcation between historic architecture and modern multimedia, there was no effort to blend the AV components into the cottage—they stand in stark, modern contrast to their surroundings, hopefully making it clear to even the youngest visitors that Lincoln didn't spend his time at the cottage kicking back in front of a flat-panel TV.

“The exciting thing about President Lincoln’s Cottage is that it is a marriage of museum and theatre,” observes Klainer. “The worlds are very similar—people in both are passionate about telling stories. They just have different concerns and appeal to their audiences in different ways. Light levels in a museum are, many times, governed by preservation, but here we were able to work with a different set of rules, and we came up with a true hybrid.”

Copyright Lighting&Sound America June 2008
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