PROJECTION MAPPING STREET ART

A highlight of this year’s White Night Melbourne was a world first graffiti mapping exhibit from Technical Direction Company on a five storey high, 70m long canvas for the 12-hour nocturnal event in February.

Inspired by Paris’ Nuit Blanche and the international network of White Night programmes around the world, the third annual Melbourne event featured local, national and international artists and works from Australia, France, Canada, Greece, Portugal, India and the United Kingdom, explained artistic director Andrew Walsh.

“And TDC is clearly no stranger to world first uses of projection mapping tech or, for that matter, to White Night, having been one of our go-to, trusted technology service providers for a number of years now,” Walsh said.

The preferred technology supplier provided video projection technology and expertise to various exhibits across the event’s schedule, but the street art project was of particular interest. Sofles – Graffiti Mapped was a pioneering interactive mural project curated by urban art consultancy Juddy Roller, exploring the interconnected nature of street art, technology and the online frontier.

It combined 3D video mapping, traditional street art and graffiti executed by Australian street artist, Sofles, with creative direction by Juddy Roller, motion design by Grant Osborne, cinematography by Selina Miles, and a musical score by New Zealand producer Opiuo.

“TDC provided Barco HDX Flex projectors, lenses and control system, as well as on-site technical support for this and other areas at the festival,” explained TDC regional manager Brad Williams.

“The load in times were incredibly tight indeed. Yet it was a true delight to work on such a groundbreaking street art project. The merging of street art with the latest projection mapping tech created a visual spectacular that is clearly going to set a trend for future projects. These types of projects always help our team to test the technologies that we use to the absolute limit, which means that we are constantly using them in new and exciting ways.”

Juddy Roller owner Shaun Hossack personally selected Sofles and worked closely with the production team to set up the event over four days after Sofles created with initial artwork for the canvas. “Projection mapping means so much for artists in being able to express their artwork using technology,” Hossack said.

“The façade had quite a lot of negative space that helped with motion designers to have creativity and freedom to design the piece. The narrative includes peace, war, technological advancement to ultimate destruction and re-birth.

“And TDC was absolutely vital to the entire project in bringing Sofles’ work to life. TDC were already a known and trusted partner of White Night. Plus, animation artist Grant Osborne already knew TDC, so naturally we said we wanted to work with TDC for 3D projection mapping.”

Osborne mapped content using MadMapper video mapping software, and TDC assisted by giving pixel space for the content, using the Barco HDX-W20 FLEX 20,000 lumens projectors’ warp function to correct it.

“TDC managed all the large scale technical stuff and the work when it came to projection all of which, operationally, ran very smoothly indeed,” Hossack said. “In future, we’d like to bring in a little more interactivity and use lighting designers to bring the audience a little more into it. That would be next logical step forward.

“I had always worked with street artists as a project manager and creative director, so White Night Melbourne was an amazing opportunity to bring it all together, where we created the world first graffiti mapping – something that had never been done before. And something that we think left a deep and lasting impression on the Melbourne skyline long after the lights went out at this year’s festival.”

Images courtesy of Technical Direction Company and Juddy Roller.

LINKS

Technical Direction Company: 1300 783 832 or www.tdc.com.au

Juddy Roller: juddyroller.com.au