Toronto embraces 4-letter words

posted Oct 4th 2009 10:59am by
filed under: classic hacks, news

This year was not the first in which the City Hall of Toronto was lit up in a unique way. However, it was the first time that the government building was used to project 4-letter words. Brainchild of [D.A. Therrien], the 4LWM represents something that he imagined for a long time. [Therrien] built the huge sign in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he displayed it over the waterfront. He was later commisioned to bring the sign to Toronto for Nuit Blanche after making some adaptations (due to weather differences). The sign is composed of 4 huge 16-segment displays. Each segment is made of many neon light modules. This configuration makes it less noticable if one such module fails. The sign is controlled below from a computer, which allows it to display text and simple animations. It’s the first in a series of installations dubbed ”Beautiful Light” by [Therrien]. Despite the name, no inappropriate language was displayed on the sign.



12 Responses to Toronto embraces 4-letter words

  • Spork says:

    “lighten up”… really?
    How about “not the first time city hall was LIT up in a unique way”?

    First comment.

  • mars says:

    > “lighten up”… really?
    Really.

    > First comment.
    STFU and stop with this ‘FIRST1!11!’ bullshit.
    It does not make you special.

  • Neat. But find some better words to display!

    FIND
    BEER
    HERE
    DUDE

  • sam says:

    4TH COMMENT WOOT!!!!!

  • Choscura says:

    lose
    girl
    here
    dude

  • user@domain.tld says:

    who says “fuck” is not appropriate?

  • Random says:

    I was there last night, it was biblically bright.

  • TheFish says:

    maybe its a secret code to some top secret bank account.

  • mjrippe says:

    Besides the size, the idea is old hat. The “original” FLW was designed and built by Raymond Weisling in 1973. It used Burroughs B7971 Nixie tubes and had settings for clean and dirty words.

  • TrollFish says:

    How about

    H1N1
    HERE
    DUDE

  • jefftheworld says:

    Ha, we played a guerrilla chiptune concert right by that sign (from about 9-11:45).

    The entire time we were there, nobody nearby was paying any attention to the expensive “art” project.

  • Frogz says:

    c3h8
    WILL
    BLOW
    U_UP

  • Leave a Reply

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