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.
Tekamaki a d3 Studio
d3 Technologies are pleased to announce San Carlos based rental and staging company Tekamaki have signed up to become the latest d3 Studio. With a client base ranging from NASA to Nintendo and Electronic Arts to Google, Tekamaki profiles as a high-end technical service provider with deep roots in display technology and an extremely knowledgeable staff.
Tekamaki’s capabilities range from concept development through process management, project design and staging. A small, flexible company with decades of industry experience between its team members, Tekamaki’s focus has always been on teamwork, talent, innovation and the latest in display and media technology to help their clients successfully communicate their message. Tekamaki used d3 systems on the September 2012 DreamForce event for Salesforce.com, which saw the entire San Francisco City Hall mapped up for a one-off performance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Based in San Carlos, California, Tekamaki team members include Matt Ward (co-founder of Element Labs), Joe Conway, Ron Machado, Robert Loney and Christopher Burdett.
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…)
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…)
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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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.
2012 – La 2 Spain TV Mapping
I thought this was a pretty unique way of ending a news year. Most of the time we’re treated to the same old ‘one-shot’ style story or a list of some sort….but projectionmapping is far cooler! Plus- who can’t resist a decent time-lapse? Juanjo Fernandez and his cohorts used a single 20k DPI to shoot this, although they said they’d rather have had 3 (who wouldn’t?)…real-world budgets- ugh.
Juanjo Fernandez of Gnomalab used Millumin to map it, along with:
Oscar Teston (Creator of VjSpain community) in art direction.
Rafel Gallego as Producer.
La bocina with the sound.
Romera diseño e Infografia, with the visual content, 3D and 2D.
all imagery courtesy/copyright Gnomalab
2012 summary News in La 2 Spain TV with mapping | Resumen del año 2012 en La 2 from Romera Diseño e Infografía S.L on Vimeo. Making off en timelapse del Mapping "2012" La 2 Noticias de TVE. from gnomalab on Vimeo.
Time Lapse
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.
Panoramic Room 2 from Dub Video Connection
I came across a really great looking mapping project from Dub Video Connection recently. They are a multidisciplinary studio, based in Lisbon, Portugal, dedicated to multimedia arts and interactivities, since 1997. They are committed to develop ideas and projects in Film Direction and Production, Graphic and Motion Design, Visual Identities for artists and festivals, Video Mapping and 3D Visuals, Interactve Systems, Technical Implementation and Visuals Creation and Performance. Dub Video Connection uses its skills, allied with the most recent technology, to blend visual narratives and visual identities and bring them to the most demanding audiences.
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- Taping madness!
DVC explains about the piece, Panoramic Room 2, “In this project we used two Panasonic DS100 projectors, 10k therefore, as you can see on the video.
For the playback we used Dataton Watchout and connected to another computer for the live drawing there was a member of the team drawing with total freedom using Alchemy over the whole projection. We can say that the biggest input on “hardware” was in fact the black tape on the wall, which gave to the image that amazing contrast that we can find in the medieval stained glass. Every line and surface was mapped and operated during the show, an audiovisual experience, with sound design and music to involve the audience in that specific environment (rain, birds, lightnings, etc). This live performance wasn’t a finished product, and in this very next weekend we’ll have a another one in the same place with the same environment, but with inputs, new visuals, contents and some narrative. This project was definitely implicated in the specific architecture of that space (House of Music, by dutch architect Rem Koolhaas). This project was created as an hostage of that space, as an experimental and paisagistic approach inviting everyone to sit down and enjoy the imaginary and surrealistic transfiguration of the room.”
Love the taped outlines!
Enjoy!
Panoramic Room 2.0 from Dub Video Connection on Vimeo.
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.”
ETC Audiovisuel for Orange
A technician sent me a link to this beautiful corporate gig for Orange done by ETC Audiovisuel. Utilizing ETC’s proprietary “Onlyview” software, they were able to do it with with a whopping 26 Christie 20k’s!
ORANGE / les innovations d’Orange racontées par Stéphane Richard from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.
Client : Orange
Agency : Havas Event
Art Direction : Superbien
Sceneography : Vincent Coutelin
Production : Fighting Fish
Projection : ETC Audiovisuel
Music : StartRec
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.
An Inquiring Age
I thought I’d post a piece that was sent to me by John Ensor Parker, co curator of the incredible Codex Dynamic recently staged at the DUMBO Arts festival. Some technical details of “An Inquiring Age” will follow (this was a massive install made possible in part by Worldstage and Nationwide Video featuring the d3 media servers), but for now, just dig the video!
Thanks John!
An Inquiring Age-SHORT from John Ensor Parker on Vimeo.
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