Mapping Festival 2013
There’s some great videos coming out of the Mapping Festival 2013 held May 2-12 in Geneva. I’ll post some more this week- We’ve seen the work of Bordos.Artworks in the past, but here’s a reminder- I wish I had a decent pair of 3D goggles…..
BORDOS.ARTWORKS AND INVITED ARTISTS @ MAPPING FESTIVAL 2013 / MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORY / GENEVA from Bordos.ArtWorks / Bordos L Zsolt on Vimeo.
Form and Substance footage
By all accounts it looks like Form and Substance was a big success. If you couldn’t make it to the show, here’s a little teaser footage with a few recognizable pieces….
Hoping to get some details from Bryan in the near future…
Form and Substance: Projection Mapping in Contemporary Art. Spring 2013 from Integrated Visions Productions on Vimeo.
Form and Substance
Big reminder- Form and Substance: Projection Mapping in Contemporary Art, the first group exhibition in the United States dedicated exclusively to artists working with projection mapping as a medium- is this Friday. If you’re in the NYC area and you’re a fan, get to this exhibition!
In addition to the already outstanding line-up (including Davy and Kristin McGuire, John Ensor Parker, Joanie Lemercier), they’ve added two new artists to the roster: Joel Fitzpatrick is a fine artist, fashion designer, interior designer, lighting designer, and production designer. He will be presenting three works, including a collaboration with New York based painter and graffiti artist Adam Dare.
The exhibition opens Friday, May 10 at 6 PM at the Gowanus Ballroom at 55 9th Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The opening party is from 6 PM to 10 PM, and entry is free.
There will be a $10 cover charge starting at 10 PM, with Percussion Lab residents Nooka Jones and Archie Pelago playing till 4 AM. Proceeds from the door go to benefit the Gowanus Ballroom, which is still recovering from damage incurred during Hurricane Sandy.
The full list of artists is below. We are also still accepting tax-deductibe donations to help defray costs, including travel and accommodations for our foreign artists, promotional expenses, and production costs for several works. All donations are processed by Mister Artsee, a 501 (c) (3) arts-industry non-profit. Email for details about donating.
Leviathan’s Been Busy…
Collecting awards, that is. Chicago based visual studio Leviathan garnered the Platinum Remi Award for Visual/Special Effects this past weekend at the 46th WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival (www.worldfest.org) for their original short film “Lilith”. Then, at the FITC Toronto Design and Technology Festival last Monday, Leviathan’s executive creative director Jason White personally accepted the FITC Best Animation Award for the studio’s sensational “Wooden Toy” project for Ninja Tune recording artist Amon Tobin.
“We have an awful lot of people to thank for putting us in the position to earn this recognition from the judges of the world’s longest-running independent film festival, and from the FITC, which covers the future of everything innovative, technical and creative,” White began. “Across the spectrum of our phenomenal creative partners including V Squared Labs and Red Moon Theater among many others, unbelievably talented and passionate artists and craftspeople, to my fellow principals Chat Hutson and Matt Daly, we are counting a lot of blessings this week. Immense thanks to everyone who has played a part in our success to date, and with this recognition, we are even more inspired to create phenomenal visual experiences.”
Since launching in 2010, Leviathan’s collaborations with agencies, brands and leading filmmakers have rendered scores of sensational projects across all markets and industries and earned award recognition from the Association of Independent Music, Communication Arts Magazine, the AICP, The D Show, The One Club, and the Themed Entertainment Association.
Earlier in his day at FITC, Jason presented his original talk entitled “Hyperblender, the collision of art and technology” an hour-long presentation discussing vision, our past and future of creating transformative visual experiences. According to feedback from conference organizers and on Twitter, it was one of the most talked-about of the conference’s 70 sessions, which drew over 1,200 attendees from around the world over the past three days.
Congratulations Leviathan! Well deserved accolades!
UMF Carl Cox Mega Structure
I know I know….Coachella’s in full swing and UMF is so- well, done. But UMF was a huge hit this year (surprise) and along with being a huge hit, you have to have huge structures- like this one:
AG Lights & Sound - Mega Structure - Ultra Music Festival 2013 - Video from ASK Media Productions on Vimeo.
Credit:
Design by Stephen Lieberman – SJ Lighting -sjlighting.net Production by AG Lights & Sound – ag.tc Video by ASK Media Productions – Adam Kaplan – askmediaproductions.com
Mapping Festival 2013
Mapping Festival 2013 is about to get under way in Geneva so get tickets NOW. There’s something for everybody- installations, VJing, and workshops on mapping and stage design from the likes of Boris Edelstein, Joanie LeMercier, and Phillipe Chaurand.
“The Mapping Festival is a multidisciplinary festival dedicated to audiovisual arts and digital cultures. As the sole broadcasting space of this magnitude in Switzerland, the festival is now also recognised internationally, and this with the richness of programming. Mapping Festival offers every year audiovisual performances, installations, clubbing parties, live performances, architectural mapping, as well as workshops and conferences.
Thanks to this unique diversity aspect, the festival is recognised throughout the world as an major event, a real experimental meeting space, for creation and exchange with its innovative thinking in the field of audiovisual arts.
Now in its eighth edition, the Mapping Festival has steadily grown and has become one of the leading events of its kind in Europe.”
AntiVJ Paleodictyon

AntiVJ has once again conquered a major projection mapping on a very unique structure. Paleodictyon is shot onto the curved exterior of architect Shigeru Ban’s the Centre Pompidou Metz, France. “(The piece is) loosely inspired by the work and research of deep-sea expert Peter A. Rona, (and) abolishes notions of scale by contrasting micro-architecture with human construction. Fascinated by the marks left by unknown creatures called Paleodictyon Nodosum, he offers the hypothesis that these hexagonal structures are designed in order to cultivate bacteria. A modern day Captain Nemo, Peter A. Rona wanders relentlessly across the seabed looking to discover (more…)
Museo Nazionale del Cinema uses projectiondesign


As part of a wholesale technological overhaul in one of Europe’s most evocative museum spaces, projectiondesign has supplied 40 of its high-performance DLP® projectors to the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin, Italy. The projectors were provided by and supported by Italian distribution partner, AGMULTIVISION and installed by Italian System Integrator OVRIT VIDEO. Image courtesy OVRIT Video
Housed inside the Mole Antonelliana, (more…)
Chris Shen- Infra

I have a friend experimenting with low-rez video (of the tube variety) and I said I’d look into some ideas…little did I know it would lead me to Chris Shen’s fascinating work- Infra. A TV made from discarded remote controls. There’s so many great things about this piece that it’s hard to know where to start. Hacking, tinkering, re-purposing, and a smidge of nostalgia all rolled into one glorious low-rez display that has to be seen with infrared goggles. Love it! Personally, I use the Harmony 720 (actually three of them) and though I tried really hard- I could not find one in the photos. When I purchase a new monitor or TV, the remote is usually the first thing I toss- knowing full-well there are better alternatives out there. Kind of makes me think why the manufacturer bothers at all with a lame remote, but that’s a discussion for another day. The whole thing is wired to a Peggy 2, courtesy Evil Mad Scientist Labratories. Be sure to read the write up HERE.
From his press release:
In 1955, Eugene Polley (1915 – 2012) designed the first ever wireless remote control for the Zenith Radio Corporation. At the press of a button, the remote would magically flash an invisible light from across the room and turn your TV set on, off, or change channels, all without you budging from the couch. It was an invention that changed the nature of television.
To kick off 2013 at 18 Hewett Street, Protein is proud to present interactive artist Chris Shen’s original artwork INFRA, a largescale installation that marks the (more…)
Lightbox from NYX Visual
NYX Visual Label has done some pretty impressive work in the last year, and they’ve expanded their studio offerings with NYX Atelier, focusing on the design and production of permanent digital art installs and light devices for private and public clients in Europe. Louis de Castro tells me “LIGHTBOX is a semi-modular, custom build LED ceiling that was designed by NYX Atelier for the reopening of Paris underground music venue “Panic Room” in January 2013. LIGHTBOX was developed by NYX Atelier
along with Vincent Coutelin, our technical director, and Romain Belloche, our light designer, both overseeing the fabrication and visual programming aspects of the installation.
Thanks to Vincent we had the chance to travel to Shenzhen, China to purchase all the parts and electronics required but also to visit the fantastic factories and suppliers that now allow us to be more flexible than ever on the products and technologies we decide to use on each project.
LIGHTBOX from NYX Visual Label on Vimeo.
The development of the installation also featured a fullfiling partnership with young French company, Chromateq, that supplied us with the DMX controllers and LED Player Software offering great control and customization on a simple package.
Not having the possibility budget wise to create a completely new designed software and controller we turned to them for providing a complete solution that would allow us to concentrate on the design, technical sourcing and fabrication but also provide great tools for developing rich content following the artistic vision for the piece.”
Make sure to check out NYX on their site as well as other projects that have been featured here on Projectionfreak.
Wilderbe- Projectionmapped Dance Troupe IndieGoGo Campaign

Just got a note from Wilderbe, a dance troupe that uses projectionmapping techniques to enhance their performance. Looks like they are running an IndieGoGo campaign to raise funds for a projector purchase. Let’s see….projection, dance, performing arts+technology….how could we resist? Have a look at their showreel and campaign vid below and, if you’re so inclined, head over to there IndieGoGo page to throw’em a buck or two. As we all know, this business isn’t necessarily the cheapest and creation takes effort- financially and emotionally. Director Nova Han would be most appreciative.
“Wilderbe has already performed at 2 world class festivals as main stage acts, performed at a private event for Bob Pitman CEO of Clear Channel, as well as shared the stage with Alicia Keys and Katy Perry. Crowds and reviewers have expressed how immersed they became while watching Wilderbe’s theatrical performance synergize with technology. I am beyond impressed by their performances and completely agree that the show “changes people’s perceptions of reality”, “is surreal”, “avant-garde”, and “the future of entertainment.” Its the perfect media convergence that evokes a one of a kind visual-sensory experience. We are trying to fundraise to get two projectors and a screen so that our team can master this fusion between different mediums of art.”
Obscura Permanent Projectionmapping at the Hive
Projectionmapping artists Obscura recently installed a HUGE permanent projectionmapping rig for The Hive, a night club in Copenhagen. The decorations for the walls were modelled in SketchUp and transformed into flat shapes using the Pepakura Software. The different fragments were then laser cut in thick cardboard. Assembling the pieces wasn’t easy, but with patience and small nails, acrylic foam and other remedies they were put onto the wall and fastened.
They used six 4000 lumen Acer projectors for covering the two walls. They were mounted below the ceiling to cover 11 by 3 meters on each wall. The connections were made using HDMI cables. The longest stretch was approximately 15 meters – about the furthest you can go without amplification.
A Mac Pro with an ATI Radeon 5870 graphics card was connected to two TrippleHead2Go devices. On the machine, Madmapper handled the precise mapping of pre rendered graphics to the physical shapes. But apart from that we created a box with buttons that allows the employees to switch between the different prerecorded video loops. The box was created using an Arduino board that communicates with Max/MSP on the computer. Max/MSP handles the timing, fading and switching between modes and forwards a midi signal to MadMapper which then reacts by switching between between presets. Also it was a requirement that a VJ should be able to connect to the system. The VJ switches to a setting on the Arduino box and plugs in a DVI cable. This mode is handled by a Blackmagic capture card that forwards the VJ signal into Milumin. Here the VJ signal is adjusted to the dimensions of the walls (the signal is tiled and mirrored) and the output from Milumin is then via Syphon put into MadMapper.
So once again we see a prime example of how a little thought and ingenuity go a long way. Expensive components and complex gear need not be the purvey of video, mapping, or permanent installs, indeed- you can get some pretty astounding results with less. Nice work Obscura!
Permanent mapping installation at The Hive from Obscura on Vimeo.
projectiondesign at the London Transport Museum
Who doesn’t love trains and transport museums? I thought so. No one.
We go to a lot of ‘kid-centric’ venues for entertainment (obviously- with our kids). But like any concert or theatre show I attend, I’m drawn in to the details of production. Museums and the like are pretty much the incubators for ‘multi-media’ as it were so there are no shortages of projectors and display devices- right down to the signage. So I got a thrill when I read about the London Transport Museum’s use of projection…. and their weapon of choice? Norway’s projectiondesign of course. They are celebrating 5 years of constant use. 5 years! Projectiondesign’s projectors are renowned for their utility when it comes to permanent and semi-permanent installs, as thoroughly featured by the following:
From the press release:
Situated in Covent Garden Market, London’s most frequented tourist hot spot, the London Transport Museum utilises projectiondesign F3+ and F1+ series projectors throughout the museum’s exhibit areas to tell the story of transport within London. The projection system was installed and maintained by global systems integrator, Electrosonic in 2007 and has been working non-stop ever since. “In 1933, Chief Executive, Frank Pick’s mantra was ‘fitness for purpose’ and he believed that good design was essential. This principle applies to the design of technology in our gallery,” explains Rob Lansdown, Chief Projects and Infrastructure Officer at London Transport Museum. “We use projection to show how this unique design culture was developed across the company’s entire range, from vehicles and architecture to information signs and publicity. Our requirements in 2007 were for high-resolution projectors that would be stable over time as well as produce outstanding image quality in various ambient light levels and, which required minimum maintenance over the lifetime of the exhibit. We are very pleased with how well the projectors have performed.”
F1+ projectors are installed in a specially designed ceiling mount to project a massive 12-meter floor canvas. The exhibit takes advantage of projectiondesign’s high brightness, accurate colour capabilities and 24/7 failsafe operation. Visitors can see the collection of 5,000 posters and art collection for themselves as they walk through the exhibit. projectiondesign F3+ and F1+ series projectors are used to communicate the story of London in major exhibits such as Victorian transport, World’s first underground, Pioneer tube, Travel revolution, Growth of suburbia, London in the 1920s and 1930s, London transport at war, London Icons and Transport futures.
“Our museum has no moving parts, so through projection, we are able to visualise the scale, size and complexity of London’s transport,” adds Lansdown.
“The building is an English Heritage grade II listed former Victorian flower market, which relies on natural cooling and heating. As with all technology, heat is an issue for us, and Electronsonic designed specially mounted projection systems.”
Limelight Projection Maps for the Skyway International Light Festival 2012 in Torun, Poland
Limelight is a collective that creates monumental projection works. They’ve been fortunate enough to be able to present their work all over the world, and this most recent work is a great example of their inspiration.
I posted about their work at the Sharjah Light festival earlier this year.
"Stars" - 3d projection mapping on Skyway'12 - official video from Limelight projection on Vimeo.
Mapping Festival 2013 Registration

If you didn’t get to the Mapping Festival this year, make sure to plan for next year! The dates for the next edition are set: May 2nd through May 12th 2013! So they are pleased to announce the open call for submissions. The dates are Aug.15th- September 20th, 2012, (AV performances, AV installations, workshops, conference) and October 1st- 31st (VJing, Videomapping)
This call is open to everyone working in all disciplines of audiovisual art and digital culture. Whatever you’re imagination and creativity can muster! Submit your audiovisual performances, installations, workshops, or other audiovisual multidisciplinary projects to be presented at the Mapping Festival!
MotionHouse Voyage
UK dance innovators MotionHouse opened their most ambitious project yet, The Voyage, two weeks ago. In celebration of the London 2012 Festival, Birmingham’s Victoria Square hosted the World Premiere of The Voyage which embarked on its maiden journey in front of a delighted audience. An estimated audience of 4,500 people were treated to the first performances of The Voyage, an epic tale that tells the dramatic story of passengers aboard the HMS Olympia, a 50ft passenger liner.
Crowds were swept away with delight as they watched incredibly physical dance and daring aerial acrobatics performed aboard the ship. This unique storytelling experience kept spectators hooked as they became part of an interactive dance and film spectacle with a talented cast of over 150.
Birmingham’s prestigious Town Hall provided the perfect backdrop to the free performance, which was complemented by stunning projections, and brilliant musical performances from the Town Hall Gospel Choir, live music from the Birmingham Conservatoire and amateur performers from Birmingham Ormiston Academy, Stratford Upon Avon College, Playbox Theatre, Solihull, Nova and Coventry Youth Dance Groups and the Motionhouse Adult dance group.
Produced by Birmingham Hippodrome, The Voyage is a fantastic cultural collaboration between one of the UK’s leading outdoor dance companies Motionhouse based in Leamington Spa and Australia’s acclaimed physical theatre and aerial company Legs On The Wall, from Sydney. The music was specially written and composed by Sophy Smith and Tim Dickinson. The set is a life-size cruise liner designed by Simon Dormon with stunning film projection from Logela Multimedia from the Basque region of Spain.
Scott Snibbe at LAX

Scott Snibbe has gotten a lot of press lately and for good reason. He’s been in the interactive art scene for 20-something years and has collaborated with such celebrated innovators as Bjork, Brian Eno, and James Cameron. His latest work is called “Transit” and is one of 17 pieces running on a 58 back-to-back HD monitor ribbon overhead at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. In Scott’s words :”The 15-minute video features hundreds of pedestrians in silhouette who take part in a loose narrative grounded in their ceaseless movements left to right. Against this backdrop, travelers occasionally put down their bags and break into exuberant dance routines in styles that reflect L.A.’s diversity: from Hip-Hop to Salsa, Ballet, and Punk.
Midway through, the high-definition story shatters into abstracted fragments as multiple copies of travelers wipe forward across the screens; moon-walking travelers float backwards; crowds spew out from single travelers; and a Lady in Red appears who is ignored by them all. The project is a collaboration with Choreographer Francesca Penzani, and videographer Noah Cunningham. The California Institute of the Arts Center for Integrated Media offered substantial facilities and support for the project’s production.”
Here’s a piece from the good folks at the Creator’s Project that goes into detail about some of his innovative work:
Because you can never have enough Amon Tobin….
A whopping 30 minutes worth of AT in Austria via Electronic Beats! Enjoy!
MIDASpaces presents CODES
From our colleagues at MIDASpaces comes a call for support. They are hoping to put together a new piece entitled CODES for the Absolut Fringe 2012. You’ll recall MIDASpaces from a previous post- the Dublin based collective now needs our help to fund their latest endeavor, CODES. Gifts for funding can be made at :fund:it.ie and there are a number of levels with corresponding gifts. Knowing the expense of our little corner of the arts world, I can appreciate their need for some decent funding. Let’s help them get off to a good start and see what comes out of it!
From their Fund It page:
“We are now looking to go beyond our initial prototype for a new unique, experimental and visceral visual performance piece entitled CODES as part of the ABSOLUT Fringe 2012. Working with the MIDASpaces team are choreographers Tom O’Donnell (as seen in the FUNDIT promo) and Emma O’Kane as well as dancers Roisin A. Laffan and Alina Ortenburger. Working collaboratively, CODES will challenge how far we can take digital augmentation within a dance and live music performance.
Combining light projection, interactive audio and visual design CODES is a groundbreaking performance to be presented this coming autumn but we need your support! Aside from the typical costs of creating a show, we require high powered projectors. various other pieces of technology (some bought, some made, some hacked together by our team), for rehearsals, to feed our wonderful dancers and to make the show happen! ”
In a Thousand Drops….Refracted Glances

I recently came across the work of Aleksandra Dulic and was blown away! Aleks has been designing and creating animation/video artwork for over 15 years, with various artists. This piece, from 2008, is a fascinating blend of spatial audio along with motion-tracked video output. With Kenneth Newby and Martin Gotfrit, they created a vast, fragmented projection space that reacts when participants walk nearby… showing various body parts of over 100 different people from all walks of life.
From their website: “in a thousand drops… refracted glances is an audiovisual environment that constructs and deconstructs bodies through processes of stitching, repetition, collage, animation, stretching, contraction, multiplication and reduction. As a result of these processes (more…)
PIECES/ Chapter One : Battleship

Romain Tardy of AntiVJ has put out a new work entitled “PIECES/Chapter One: Battleship”. The piece includes music from Squeaky Lobster and is the first of 5 sets that will eventually warp and change the first. Romain explains: “The technical setup is very simple, just needs a lot of accuracy and the projectors NOT to move from 1 mm once they’re in place. I used 2x 7k lumens Panasonic projectors – one for the floor and one for the vertical plane. 7k was enough because I ask for complete dark once the performance starts. They were connected to a Matrox DualHead, that was plugged into my Macbook pro (quad i7), medias were on an external SSD. At first I wanted to use more projectors connected to my Mac Pro, but in the end 2 are just fine. The squares are made of styrofoam, they’re attached in columns by a custom system I made. For the floor plan, I build 180 little stands to give a progressive angle from the front to the back of the stage.”
“About the concept, as I see this work as a work in progress (that is still at it’s beginning), it’s not easy to talk about it as it’s changing/evolving for each new step of the work. The main idea is an evocation/metaphor (in the widest sense) of various elements (more…)
Mapping Festival 2012 Lineup announced
Below you’ll find the complete lineup (so far) of the Mapping Festival, being held in Geneva May 10th-20th. Of particular note is Joanie LeMercier’s Eyjafjallajokull and Aleksandra Dulic’s In a Thousand Drops… Refracted Glances. If you’re anywhere near Geneva around that time- by all means go see these projects!
EXHIBITION
@ Le Commun – Bâtiment d’art contemporain (BAC) /// from 10 to 20/05
Preview: 10/05
Pascal Dufaux (CA) Déjà vu
Joanie Lemercier (AntiVJ/FR) Eyjafjallajokull
Daniel Canogar (ES) Scanner
Aleksandra Dulic (CA) In a Thousand Drops… Refracted Glances
Frederik De Wilde (BE) UMwelt-VIRUtopia
Danny Perreault (CA) Flow
ARCHITECTURAL MAPPING
@ Musée d’art et d’histoire /// 19/05
Bordos.ArtWorks and Invited Artists (HU)
Apparati Effimeri (IT)
AUDIOVISUAL PERFORMANCES
@ Théâtre du Galpon /// Fonderie Kugler /// Cinéma Spoutnik /// Théâtre de l’Usine
Insectotropics (ES) La Caputxeta Galàctica
Insanë (CA/CH) Dieu est un DJ- 1st representation
Sculpture (UK) Unstable Modular Collage
Casper Electronics (US)
Tasman Richardson (CA)
Chloé Tallot + Arnout Hulskamp (FR/NL) Red bus
Yilab (TW) Loop Me
RYBN (FR) ADM7:FLASHCRASH – 1st representation
Michael Vorfeld (DE) Light bulb music
TVestroy (CA)
FLEETING INSTALLATION
Cie Nejma & A-li-ce (FR) La Baraque Foraine 6.1
VISUAL-AUDIO CLUBBING
@ Zoo /// La Gravière /// La Fonderie Kugler
Discodeine (Kill the DJ/FR)
Remain (Meant Records/FR)
Vosper (Meant Records/CA)
El Hijo De La Cumbia (AR)
Nekochan (FR)
Label Commercial Suicide Party (UK)
Ras Mali (CH)
Tempo Moderno (BR/IT) Discotecario Doca et Actaruss1
RomBeads (K.O.E/CH)
Monkey Freakz (CH)
Dirty Mad Sound vs The Hiiters (CH)
SECRET LABEL PARTY
@ Fonderie Kugler /// 12/05
The official launch of a brand new audiovisual label!
The best artists of the moment and long-time favorites of the Mapping Festival, all gathered around for a full day of lectures, performances, and of course party. A wild event, keep an eye on them…
WORKSHOPS
MadMapper (CH/FR)
TagTool (UK)
And as always, the VJ CONTEST
@ Cinéma Spoutnik /// 18-19/05




























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