Since 1995, the Twin Peaks Pink Triangle has festooned our annual SF Pride weekend celebrations with a gigantic, one-acre pink homage to the LGBTQ community that’s visible from 20 miles away. But this year, the digital projection-art wizards who helped build the just-launched Conservatory of Flowers Summer of Love light show are planting one right on the smacker of that Pink Triangle. It’s called “Kisses from San Francisco” and will bring projected rainbow lips onto Patrick Carney’s iconic Pride display, designed by the large-scale projection artists of Obscura Digital.
The display will look different than the above rendering, which is merely based on guesswork and the limited Photoshop abilities of SFist’s in-house artistic team. You can bet this display will be far more impressive in real life, as Obscure Digital’s repertoire includes the Salesforce waterfall video wall, the Harper’s Bazaar 150th Anniversary Empire State Building Projections in New York, and even a show on St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. These guys are good.
“Obscura Digital will project on the Triangle images of lips blowing kisses from San Francisco to the people of the world, in a grand and open-armed statement of love, positivity and human connection,” the Obscura Digital group said in a release. “The projections will take place on Saturday, June 24 from dark until 2 a.m.”
Digital Obscura founder and chief creative officer Travis Threlkel calls the Pride weekend project “a really simple and elegant gesture where San Franciscans of all ethnicities, all races and sexualites, and all political and religious alignments send their kisses out from San Francisco as a resistance to hatred and segregation.”
“We’re looking to send a positive message from San Francisco to the rest of the world,” Threlkel told SFist. “We’re going to colorize the lips so there is no color of skin. Each kiss will be a color of the rainbow coming from the middle of the Pink Triangle that can be seen from 20 miles away. That will represent San Franciscans sending kisses of love that represent acceptance and equality of all people.”
“It’s meant to be some positive news in a threshold shit news and negativity,” he said. “We’re going to send a rainbow of fucking kisses in the middle of the Pink Triangle and hopefully that signal will get out to a lot of people that need a little good news, and need to know that people in San Francisco have the same principles and care about the same things they do.”
As with any year, volunteers are always needed to set up and tear down the triangle. Volunteer information is available online, with setup from 7 a.m.-10 a.m. Saturday morning and take-down from 4:30 p.m. - 8 p.m. Sunday evening.
Related: The SFist Guide To Pride 2017
