Spaceship Earth Becomes Mike Wazowski
In typical, glorious Disney-fied fashion Spaceship Earth, the giant golfball icon of Epcot, was transformed into Mike Wazowski- the one-eyed character from Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. to celebrate the the park’s recent “Monstrous Summer” kickoff. Visual stunts on this scale are nothing new for the Mouse, in fact I’m surprised they haven’t done it on SE before. The projectionmapped “Magic, Memories, and You” show on Cinderella’s castle was their first foray into building-sized mapping and while impressive, was a little slow on the uptake. But like all things Disney, it’s done really well and to an extent that most other entertainment venues can’t come near in terms of quality and execution.
For the Monter Summer kickoff, they used 8 Christie 35k projectors utilizing Twist for the curvature. I won’t make it down there until October so I’ll probably miss it….but maybe they’ll come up with some other theme for the 188-foot perfect projection surface.
Here’s the behind-the-scene:
GraphicsEmotion
This business is full of deadlines and we all hate them. For some of us it’s more Love/Hate (I personally love tight deadlines…makes you feel alive). The following video shows a rather hectic deadline that Montreal-based GraphicsEmotion dealt with around Coachella time. Next time you have a deadline, remember what it must be like for a bunch of people to have that same deadline, and what it took to get to the end! We’ll look at some more great stuff from Julien Abril and the team at GEM in the very near future……
Light Art- the app……
Got a great tip from Erick Calderon over at Light Art Interactive- his new projectionmapping app for iOS called- you guessed it- Light Art. Erick works a lot with Touchdesigner and got tired of using giant computers to come up with mapping schemes, so why not make a tablet app? I haven’t had a chance to download and use it yet, but it looks fascinating. As soon as I procure an iPad, I’ll let you know how it goes, but in the meantime, for those of you with an iPad with an HDMI interface, give it a go and let me know…better yet- let Erick know!
Summer Light Phantom
From The Agency, comes this great looking project- shot at night in the forest of Fontainebleau. Romain tells me they first shot the band members in their photo studio. Then, during the night in the forest of Fontainebleau, they projected their portraits on the rocks and trees and then took about 600 pictures (like a stop-motion). Finally, they assembled the pictures and added a camera traveling (parallax) and transitions between pictures (morphing) with Apple’s Motion software. Love that they did it on the fly, with a car battery and an inverter!
Equipment:
- video projector Optoma 3000 lumens
- electrical converter
- power supply car battery
- laptop
- midi keyboard
- camera Nikon D800
Editing:
- Apple Motion
- Apple Final Cut
Summer Light Phantom from Le3 on Vimeo.
Illumifeet
When I was a kid growing up on the West Coast, the hot ticket in shoes was to own a pair of Vans. They ultimately became the de-facto skate/surf/grunge wear shoe-of-choice when they came out with the slip-on version (still are AFAIK). 
The beauty of Vans at that point (early 80′s) was that they were still quite boutique and you could pick and choose different colors/fabrics for the various designs they had. If you were reeeaallllly cool, you could take (as I did) your own fabric in and have them make a pair for you.
Fast forward 30 years and you get the following. (more…)
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.
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.”
QED projectionmaps BBC Comic Relief- RED Nose Day
Check out this massive work from QED. They were contracted to projectionmap the stage for the BBC broadcast of “Funny for Money”, a huge fundraiser put on by Red Nose Day to help people in need.
From their press release:
“QED Productions successfully delivered ground-breaking video mapping and stage lighting integration for Comic Relief’s seven-hour television broadcast on BBC One, by using nineteen high-brightness Christie 3-chip DLP projectors.
According to QED Director Paul Wigfield “not only was this was the most challenging indoor projection mapping ever attempted but also the entire rig had to be installed in just one day”. (more…)
NYX Atelier #01
The lighting design arm of NYX Visual, NYX Atelier recently did a private showing of “Tetraedre”, a projectionmapped sculpture for Vincent Coutelin’s private collection. The team painstakingly created the entire structure out of scrap materials and glue. They used a Panasonic 6k and a combo of Madmapper and Modul8 to drive the visuals. Nice work!
NYX Atelier #01 from NYX Visual Label on Vimeo.
Integrated Visions to launch Form and Substance, a Group Exhibition
Exciting news from Brian and Michelle over at Integrated Visions- they’re opening a group exhibition entitled “Form and Substance” at the Gowanus Ballroom on the weekend of May 10-12. It’ll feature works by Joanie LeMercier, Claudio Sinatti, Domingo Zapata, and more. Here’s an excerpt fro the release note:
“Integrated Visions Productions is excited to announce an additional creative path for 2013. In the wake of the success of the ‘Codex Dynamic’ group exhibition at the 2012 DUMBO Arts Festival (see PF article), which received the festival’s Grand Prize and Best in Show awards, we’re focusing on more intimate artwork.
We’ve developed a series of projection mapped paintings, combining fine art painting techniques with cutting-edge, projection-mapped animations to create a hybrid medium that we see as the first new terrain being explored by working artists in the 21st Century – akin to Impressionism and similar upstart movements at the turn of the last century.
We quickly realized that there exists a global community of artists and technologists working at the intersection of the traditional media of painting and sculpture and projection mapping, and we began to contact our favorite practitioners and curate a group exhibition.
Form and Substance, North America’s first group exhibition dedicated to projection mapping as a fine arts medium, will take place the weekend of May 10-12, at the Gowanus Ballroom in Brooklyn, New York. The Frieze Art Fair, the enfant terrible of the global festival circuit, takes place in New York over the same weekend, making this a unique opportunity to make a global impression.”
If you’re in NYC or anywhere near on that weekend- this is one NOT TO MISS.
White Kanga Strikes Again for CTL Logistics
The incredibly inventive folks over at White Kanga recently did this huge industrial for CTL Logistics. Utilizing eight 22k projectors and Touchdesigner, they transported the audience on an intergalactic themed presentation, and then fed live video of the entertainment into the animated video frames. These guys do some amazing work- make sure to check out their piece that appeared on PF previously… MPS v1.0
As a bonus, I thought I’d hip you to their Interactive Kinetic Mapping System, Building version: iKMS Building v3 from White Kanga on Vimeo.
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A Journey Through Bass
And for a slow Monday- a little homage to UK bass music from collective mo:ya. Guest starring Modul8 and Madmapper. A journey through bass from [mo:ya] on Vimeo.
John Ensor Parker Talks TEDx and Projection
TED talks are all the rage- and this one made my Monday! John Ensor Parker is a projection artist who recently did CODEX Dynamic at the DUMBO Artsfest. His work is pretty fascinating and this video gives just a little glimpse into the process behind making a large-scale work like CODEX happen. Yeah, yeah…we all know it takes servers and projectors and lots of cable- but John emphasizes the importance of knowing where our medium came from….we owe a lot to the past. Check out the article previously on PF HERE. Many thanks John!
Resolume Content Creation Contest
The folks at Resolume are throwing a content creation party and they want you all to come! From their blog:
To participate, all you have to do is fire up Resolume and go crazy with the sources, effects and blend modes. Make combinations that you didn’t think were possible. Stack effects as high as wedding cake to make something totally new out of that Solid Color. Flip the order of the blend modes and see what comes out. Above all, have fun with it!
The only rule is simple: you can only use the built-in effects and sources of Resolume. No still images, videos or webcam footage.
Record your output, upload it to Vimeo and post it as a reply on this thread. Don’t forget to Include your .avc as a zipped attachment.
Amaze us. First Runner Up walks away with a brand spanking license of Avenue. The Winner walks away with Arena and gets to release his or her work on the label.
Now go and make us proud!
Deadline 28th of February.
Projectionmapping Workshop at Harvestworks
Looks like a great opportunity if you’re in the NYC area Feb. 23-24. Harvestworks is a non-profit organization dedicated to technology, art, engineering, and music. Founded in 1977, their mission is to support the creation and presentation of art works achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies.
The workshop:
Projectionmapping 1.0 for Beginners
presented in collaboration with Chika, this 2 day workshop serves as a comprehensive introduction to methods for creating projection mapping. The tools used in the workshop are MadMapper and Modul8. The students will get fully-functional 30-day trial versions of the software to create a collaborative projection mapping installation for the end of class. This workshop is intended for the students who want to learn how to develop projection mapping projects for future events, art installations, and performances.
Sat/Sun, February 23 + 24, 1-5pm
Cost: $230 (regular), $200 (student/member) CHeck their page HERE for more info!
Tigrelab Vertical Dance and Videomapping for TV3
Tigrelab just did this great videomapping for TV3 featuring Sacude. Projecionmapping and dance already go together well, even more so when you do it sideways 30 ft. up a wall! In addition to some fantastic camera work, a Dataton Watchout was used along with a single Barco 20k.
Tigrelab - Video Mapping and Vertical Dance for TV3 from Tigrelab on Vimeo.
Castle Nightclub Gets a Rig from DCBolt Productions
Devin Wambolt over at DCBolt Productions gave me the heads-up on this crazy nightclub install they just completed. The club is Castle Nightclub in Chicago and they premiered the system for a huge NYE bash this year. Devin reports: “We are using three different types of LED’s in this system, (aside from the house lights) LED panels, LED strips, and LED modules. Our LED strips are (32x) SMD5050 LED pixels per meter, our Modules are (5x) SMD5050 LEDs per pixel, the LED panels are 6 millimeter pitch SMD2835 LED pixels. The led strips and modules are run by MADRIX Ultimate for real-time dynamic playback. The LED panel screens are being driven by a custom configured Resolume Arena setup.
Some pretty impressive work, and I’ll be sure to check it out next time I’m in Chicago!
Teleknoika Projectionmapping Workshop
Roberto Fazio joined forces with Joanie LeMercier in a projectionmapping workshop sponsored by Teleknoika. Looks like it happened in November, but through the magic of Vimeo and Projectionfreak, you too can see the action. The turnout really underscores the popularity and interest that this medium has enjoyed the past year or so. Telenoika Mapping Workshop 2012 (english) from Telenoika on Vimeo.
Microsoft IllumiRoom
Brett Jones, over at Projection Mapping Central sent me a really neat project he worked on as an intern at Redmond. Microsoft’s ‘IllumiRoom’ is a proof-of-concept system for augmenting the area around a display with projected visualizations. Gamers- take note! Yikes…what’s going to happen when I use this with 3D glasses????
The Kinect has revolutionized a lot of stuff recently…including a few projects featured here at Projectionfreak- The MIDAS project, NuFormer, and the future of car buying.
Scotch and Soda Please!
And here I thought that was just my favorite bar reply….
Netherlands-based media firm Circus Family combined forces with Jurlights and came up with this huge 360-degree projectionmapping at Gashouder Amsterdam. The gig was for Amsterdam Couture house, Scotch and Soda, for the launch of their 2013 line. Using four Hippo HD’s they were able to pipe content to ten Barco HD20′s mounted in a ring in the center. They used the ScreenWarp feature to cut the roundness and then threw in a couple of Hippo Critters with a 16×16 DVI matrix to finish it off. Technician Menno Broere tells me they didn’t even have to blend the projectors…just masked out some physical attributes. That’s how we like it- simple and clean. So many times this type of technology is ‘over done’ from the production side, so it’s nice to see people keeping to the oldest axiom in show biz- Keep It Simple Stupid.
Scotch&Soda - SS13 - 360° Projection from Circus Family on Vimeo.
The Ice Book- Super Intricate Projectionmapping Paper Models
When I was a kid, Saturdays were sometimes spent going to work with my Dad. He was an architect and since it was a weekend, we had the run of the place. I invariably would gravitate to the drafting room which, at his place, was huge! Lots of workstations, cabinets with every kind of colored pen/pencil/tip combo, electric erasers, all manner of paper, model making supplies, etc. Basically, everything that a small curious boy could get in trouble with! The thing that fascinated me the most though, were the scale models of all the buildings they were working on. Super intricate detail, all the way down to the little people cutouts and hand railings, as well as street signs and various decorative flora. So I was thrilled to come across the work of Davy and Kristin McGuire, an artistic duo out of the UK that does small-scale paper modeling combined with projection techniques. They form The Ice Book and direct, design, and perform their original video/model mashups for everything from installations to live theater shows, dance performances, interactive video performances and everything in between.
Their paper models are extremely detailed and exquisitely cut. Adding the element of projection just completely brings them to life. They use After Effects and Final Cut to render the final video, and (no surprise here) Madmapper to map the sets. So often on this site I focus on large-scale scale work, only to realize the really detailed stuff is every bit as intriguing!
A couple of their pieces stand out- ‘Psycho- Homage to Hitchcock’ as well as ‘The Hunter’.
Here’s some fascinating examples via their Vimeo page:
Psycho - Homage to Hitchcock from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.
The Hunter (Theatrical Installation) from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.
The idea of an interactive pinboard at home is just so strikingly obvious….I think I’m going to start assembly immediately! Now to make it so there can be date-relevant info displayed along with fun remembrances and package it up in a mappable environment…hmmm……
Pinboard from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.
Seeper Arts Gets Festive on BBC
Celebrate the holidays the Seeper way! The BBC invited the nation to celebrate the start of its 2012 Christmas Lights in a techno-driven finale at the closing of the One Show Live on BBC one. Clips taken from popular BBC programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing and Doctor Who were reworked by seeper into a two- minute, three-dimensional BBC Christmas experience to kick- start the festive celebrations in a way not seen before. “Growing up in the UK the BBC has always been central to Christmas for me”, said seeper’s founder, Evan Grant. “It’s a pleasure to use such an iconic building as our canvas. This is a great opportunity to celebrate Christmas the seeper way.
They used five of the Barco HDQ-2K 40, Barco’s giant 3D-capable projector in a specially built FOH rig to blast through the infamous London fog. Units supplied by XL Video, natch. XL recently invested heavily in Barco’s latest super high brightness projectors and these were no doubt part of that batch.
The proprietary “SeeperServer” was used for playback of media.
Seeper has done some pretty outstanding gigs in the last year, and you can read more here. By all means, have a look at their website- as well as their Vimeo channel. And for some great info on their process (as well as projectionmapping in general) check out this slide deck.
some great large-scale work!
BBC One Christmas Launch from seeper on Vimeo.
