Bluebox is a joint venture of the Magdeburger Club e. V. and the BlinkenArea.

Previous history

In the winter of 2004 the members and helpers of the Magdeburger Club changed an empty building in the city center of Magdeburg into a Christmas Calendar. After negotiations with the owner and setting up a new cable system it was fulfilled: Strip lights where switched on in certain rooms, so that the number of the calendar date was shown at the front of the building. The installation was operated with time switches, hence at midnight the number changed to the next date. Thereupon the neon lamps had to be replugged for the next day. The project was financed through sponsoring and the highlight was a small party at the evening of the 23rd of December for all Calender fans, who watched the switch-over many nights. The Magdeburger Club could support several youth and culture project with the remaining money from sponsors.

In the following year the city of Magdeburg was celebrating its 1200th birthday and people decided to extend the project. Inspiring examples for changing the building into a computer display were Blinkenlights, La Bastille, TowerTalk or Tetris For Buildings. Each of the 686 windows will be a single pixel which can be controlled separately. The Magdeburger Club was searching for technical support and finally got in contact with the Blinkenarea. In July 2006 the project bluebox was launched by these two parties.

The "blue buck" (Blauer Bock)

In Magdeburg the common parlance called the building "blue buck" (Blauer Bock) due to the proportion and the blue tiles on the facade. The house was built in the 70's and has 7 levels each with mainly one-room-flats, which had 4 to 5 windows at the front. In GDR times the building was used as a hostel and after the reunification until the mid 90's it was to let. Since then the flats of the former residential and business house are unused.