Night of the human pixels

The authors report on their experience of seeing the 2005 Ariang, or Mass Games held in North Korea, which in their opinion is one of the world's most spectacular events. They explain that despite the 200,000 performers at the Mass Games the star of the show was the mosaic backdrops that take up the whole of one side of the stadium in Pyongyang, created by 20,000 school children each snapping open a book comprised of colour double page spreads. They explain that each child acts like a human pixel and note that Western CGI technology could not match the quality of the mosaics' imagery.