Rising Festival Immerses with Projection
Melbourne’s premier music and art festival relies on Panasonic projection to immerse its audiences.
22 August 2023
Main Photo: Eugene Hyland
If you wondered what happened to the Melbourne International Arts Festival or, indeed, White Night, then look no further than the Rising — Melbourne’s new premier festival of contemporary art and music.
Some of White Night’s big-picture, pixel-mapping DNA has been carried over to Rising with a number of incredible immersive projection and music installations.
Three in particular, Euphoria, Anthem and Shadow Spirit, encapsulate why large-scale projection is impossible to beat in certain installations such as these.
Melbourne events business, CVP Events, Film & Television supplied and installed the projection, screens and media servers for the three features. Some 56 high-brightness Panasonic projectors from CVP’s inventory were used for the event.
Hannah Fox, Co-artistic Director and CEO of Rising: “Panasonic Connect and CVP have been incredible in not just supplying the gear but also understanding what’s required and helping us to respond to artists and what their needs are to make a work happen. The ultimate effect, from an audience perspective, is they’re not thinking about where the video begins and ends or where the projectors are sitting, because they’re in it. That is the dream result from my perspective, and I hope Panasonic’s too.”
CVP Managing Director, Jon Willis, describes the three installs for us below.
Rising: rising.melbourne
CVP Events, Film & Television: cvp.com.au
Twisted Pixel (Projection Mapping): twistedpixel.com.au
Panasonic Connect: oc.connect.panasonic.com
Euphoria
Artist: Julian Rosefeldt
Location: Melbourne Town Hall
Features: 24 projectors with synced soundtrack
Panasonic Projection: RQ22 20K 4K for the big screen; 23 x RZ Series elsewhere; relying on the ET-DLE020 UST lenses
More info on the artist and installation
Jon Willis: “Euphoria, is a quite extraordinary work that’s only ever been staged in three other locations in the world. It’s a truly immersive film experience. A continuous film runs for one hour, 55 minutes with three specific elements: At ground level are choir screens (the Brooklyn Youth Choir shown in life size), where 18 projectors are stitched together with very short throw lenses. Above the choir are five drummers on large screens that surround the audience; and, finally, the 14m-wide major screen displaying the primary film that tells a story of capitalism. All of the media is projected onto specialised high-gain surfaces that provide an exceptionally faithful colour representation – the Panasonic projectors excel in this regard, the fidelity of the colour is really, really terrific. All of the media is locked together with timecode and all stitched together to produce an immersive experience.
“The artist Julian Rosefeldt attended the premiere along with his team and they were incredibly complimentary about this particular setup, indicating it was the smoothest and best result they’d seen thus far. That’s a very pleasing testimonial for Rising, for CVP and for Panasonic projection. CVP has been very proud to play our small part in bringing this significant work to life here in Melbourne.”
(Photo: Eugene Hyland)
Shadow Spirit
Curated by: Kimberley Moulton
Location: Ballroom above Flinders St Station
Features: A variety of projection mapping
Panasonic Projection: 2 x PT-RZ21K; 20 x RZ Series; 1 x RCQ Series; 1 x MZ Series LCD Laser; 4 x DZ Series
More info on the artist and installation
Jon Willis: “Shadow Spirit is a series of 12 rooms, each an individual work of art by indigenous artists. They’re very disparate, with very disparate technical requirements and lots of technical challenges insofar as where projectors are placed, levels of brightness, and appropriate lenses. We also co-ordinated the automation system for all of lighting, video and sound.”
(Photo: Eugene Hyland)
Anthem
Artist: Wu Tsang
Location: St Paul’s Cathedral
Features: Huge 18m x 6m portrait screen
Panasonic Projection: 2 x PT-RZ24K 3-Chip DLP Laser Projectors with 2 x ET-D75LE30 Zoom Lens
More info on the artist and installation
Jon Willis: “Anthem is a what you might describe as a deceptively simple work. It’s a large-scale sound and video collaboration between artist Wu Tsang and folk icon Beverly Glenn-Copeland. It relies on its setting inside the cathedral to envelope the audience is magnificent natural reverb. From a visual perspective, two edge-blended Panasonic 20,000-lumen laser projectors point at a huge white drape (18m high by 6m wide). Originally we thought we would need three projectors to pull this off, but the 2 x Panasonic RZ24K projectors proved to be more than sufficient. Anthem is a powerful work made more powerful by the dramatic setting and cavernous acoustics.”
(Photo: Damien Raggatt)
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