Highest Five

The projected image changed the face of human entertainment, with moving pictures fooling our brains and transporting us to other worlds. As technologies have evolved, so have the artistic ambitious around them, and while we generally think of technology as trending towards reductions in size, these mapping examples show us how to live large. Here are six creative building projections to get you thinking big.

The Image Mill

The joy of the building-sized projection is the massiveness of it all, and nothing’s more massive than Robert Lepage’s image mill, showing this summer in Quebec City. Commemorating and portraying Quebec’s 400 year history, the video occupies a surface about 100 ft X 2 000 ft, roughly equivalent to 25 IMAX screens.

Lepage is a well known artist with a great sense for how to incorporate technology into his projects, and he’s managed to produce a masterpiece of sight and sound with the collaboration of Ex Machina over two years of production at a cost of about $4 million.

If you can’t make it up to Quebec City this summer, the video can be watched in the comforts of your own home, using 6 screens to both maintain the spirit of grandeur and to maintain the video’s otherwise disproportionately wide shape. Simple instructions for how to set up your own mill can be found here. It’s super easy, so give it a try (if you happen to have 6 computers equipped with bid management software handy…)

555 KubiK

Creative Applications created this funky visual experience by meshing the projection images with the building’s existing physical architecture. The video was made in 3D Studio Max, giving an impression of transforming the building itself by presenting very much 3D-oriented visuals.

555 KUBIK_ extended version from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

Pinwall

This is my favorite creation by the geniuses over at UrbanScreen.com. While it may not be as visually impressive as the Image Mill or 555 KubiK (not that it’s not visually impressive), the real hotness of this projection is the interactivity. Bystanders during Viertelfest Bremen in 2007 were able to affect the giant game as seen below. It may not be as fun as building-sized Tetris, but it’s got more style.

Pinwall | interactive facade pinball | urban screening from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

AntiVJ

VJ Crustea is a French dude living in the UK who specializes in fusing electronic music with synchronized visuals. The following is a modest but still very cool building projection from 2006, picking up on the wall’s existing architectural elements as with KubiK, but more piece-by-piece.

He later put his skills into a project called Lightup Bristol started in 2007, creating a much bigger presentation, not competing with the Image Mill in size, but definitely fun for many of the same reasons.

Luminous

Check out the projection realized by The Electric Canvas on the Sydney Opera House in May and June of this year. This building projection’s claim to fame is the 21 days of non-repeating artwork alongside a fantastic festival.

It was the visual backdrop for a spectacle of light and music curated by none other than the legendary Brian Eno, ambient music pioneer and producer for bands like U2 and Coldplay. The audio-visual display is called 77 Million Paintings, and a time-lapse version can be seen here.

Tetragram for Enlargement

Italian visual art contingent Apparati Effimeri put together this castle mapping for the Itinerario Festival this past June. Watch them mess with and melt the Rocca Malatestiana. Impressive.

APPARATI EFFIMERI Tetragram for Enlargment from Apparati Effimeri on Vimeo.