The ‘Creatures of the Shadows’ project in York (UK) showcased dynamic big scale projections of paranormal creatures appearing out of the shadows onto buildings, fitting to the spooky atmosphere of the city, well known as the place of origin of ghost stories.

‘The York BID‘ (Business Improvement District) organised a free event to add a new attraction to the city for the Halloween Period. Created for the people who live, work or study in York, the event took place on two sites – Castle Museum and Library Square – in the city center, offering an incredible show of projections for 3 nights in a row.

“This type of system is usually used in cinemas and theatres. This is the first time it will be used in this country in a city setting. We’ll be using six projectors in total – three at each site. “
Tony Gill of Polestar Productions

The Harrogate-based digital projection company Polestar Productions in cooperation with partners created the spectacle, supplied the Mirror Head and produced the event for which ‘The York BID’ wrote an interesting case study.

polestar-productions.uk Event Producer and master mind.
stagesoundservices.co.uk Projectors and data infrastructure.
infocusav.co.uk Servers and programming services.
technicalstageservices.co.uk Logistics, rigging and power distribution.
distantfuture.co.uk Additional animation rendering.

As part of the Strange Days exhibition that is currently taking place at the Store X on the Strand London, our local partner in the United Kingdom, Polestar Productions was asked to provide Mirror Head units, Media Servers and technical as well as programming support to host Pippilotti Rist´s “4th Floor to Mildness” video installation. The full exhibition hosts 21 international artists and film-makers with the purpose of discussing the role that sound and music plays in bringing them all together.

Prior to the exhibitions opening in October, Polestar liaised with the Artist’s Studio and Designer to facilitate the resulting two days of programming. In the video “Installation”, you will get a glimpse of some behind the scene footage of the entire process that will also give you a small insight into the attention and details required in the presentation of the work of an internationally recognized video artist.

Visitors who may wish to experience the finished piece directly at the Store X will be able to do so until the 9th of December 2018.
180thestrand.com/
polestar-productions.uk/

Equipment used:
Mirror Head MH11-L
Panasonic PT-DZ780, RZ970
Green Hippo Karst+ media server.

To mark the 10th year anniversary of Skullmapping, the city of Leuven asked them to showcase eight of their projects during December 2018. The city of Leuven very much liked ‘King Sprong’, which was originally created for the light festival in Ghent.

Skullmapping decided to recreate the concept and project it onto M-Museum of Leuven, since they thought that this building would be an interesting canvas. In this case, the idea was to have the gorilla break into the museum to steal a painting that was part of the expo “Power and beauty: The Arenbergs” which was on display at the time.

The overall response from the general public was great. Over 20´000 people came to watch the different projections throughout the city and the King Sprong 2 show was one of people’s favorites. As Skullmapping has been doing many dynamic projection installations over the past years, they have become the specialists of storytelling for all people of all ages through different types of projection mapping.

For the second version of this show, the story was much more developed!

„The first King Sprong was created as a teaser for the light festival, but for this project I knew that this needed to be longer, and have a more interesting story line, as this needed to be one of the highlights of the festival.“ says Filip Sterckx.

For the technical preparation and creation, Skullmapping took pictures of the building, and based on the pictures made a digital 3D version of the museum. They then further developed the animations to match onto the building and used a Panasonic RZ21K projector with the Mirror Head. The show was then created using the MDC-X software as they key framed the Mirror Head so that the animations would perfectly fit onto the building.

The Mirror Head allowed Skullmapping to create a dynamic projection show and to use a really big building as the setting with only one projector. The budget of the festival was limited and to fully cover a building of this scale with projections, you would normally need around eight 20k lumen projectors. With the Mirror Head they were able to rent only one projector, but still at the same time were able to use the whole building as the play-field/canvas, making it really interesting to create and to watch.

The equipment they have chosen for this application is a Mirror Head MH14 with Panasonic Laser projector PT-RZ21K and our Media Server MDC-X2.

Concept by Filip Sterckx + Antoon Verbeeck
Directed by Filip Sterckx
3D Modeling + Animation: Paulina Zybinska
Sounddesign + Mocap acrtrice: Birgit Sterckx
skullmapping.com

Skullmapping is an artistic collective run by Filip Sterckx and Antoon Verbeeck.

Filip, who is the creative director of Skullmapping, has gained global recognition with his music videos for (among others) Selah Sue and Willow. He started his first experiments with projection mapping over ten years ago, resulting in poetic art installations in which he projects video and animation on sculptures, such as “Peepshow” and “My Orca”. His work can be recognized by his inventive visual style, love for combining live-action and animation, and a tendency to break through the traditional 2D screen.

Antoon is a visual artist. Over the last 25 years he has been working as a successful figurative art painter and runs his own gallery in Leuven, Belgium. His paintings can be recognized by a strong 3D illusion. His so called “Lonely subjects”, in the middle of a big white space, provoke a meaning that is poetic, evocative, and often with a funny witticism. His urge to experiment has led him into the skullmapping adventure, where he uses his artistic know-how into new media art.

By using a profound artistic knowledge, and combining it with the latest technology, Skullmapping tells stories with stunning bespoke visuals. We conceptualize, produce and direct projects from start to finish. We deal with art in an experimental, technology-related way.