Building Projection: Illuminating Urban Art

Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy aka Sweatshoppe developed video painting, a technology that allows them to create the illusion that they are painting videos onto walls with electronic paint rollers they built! Their latest video again showcases their live interactive video wheatpaste, this time in the streets of Berlin, Bristol, Belgrade, London and Paris. Over a two week period the duo pasted their videos in over 10 spots including the Berlin Wall, Les Invalides, Cordy House and even a two-story tall video painting in Bristol… ...

German Urbanscreen crew is specialized in large-scale projections on urban surfaces. Recently they lighted the sails at the famous Sydney Opera House, combining the art of light projection, video mapping and motion graphics to extraordinary heights… German design collective Urbanscreen transformed the Sydney Opera House with their Lighting of the Sails. They projected large-scale pictures of people moving on the surface, crawling or walking from different perspectives. The project is part of the Vivid Live Festival running from 25 May to 11 June 2012. Urbanscreen was founded in 2008 and conceives and produces custom-made media installations using high artistic standards and stylistic devices, a spacious architectural background and a consistently professional completion. Their aim is to transfer their concepts into a dialog between art and urban communication. (ignant.de) ...

This subway parasite project is quite old, it was invented by Frédéric Eyl at the University of the Arts in Berlin back in 2005 (long before about 2,200 people liked Urban Art Core on Facebook), but it’s that great that I have to share it with you… Parasite is an independant projection-system that can be attached to subways and other trains with suction pads. Parasite projects films inside a tunnel. These tunnels bear something mystic – most people usually have never made a step inside any of those tunnels. Confusing the routine of your train-travelling-journey, your habits and perception the projections parallel worlds – making use of parasite – allow you a glimpse into a different world full of surrealist imagery. (thegreeneyl.com) ...

For their experimental visual project Stenop.es, Paris-based photographers Romain Alary and Antoine Levi are just using a primitive technique: The Camera Obscura, a pinhole camera… Two layers are merging while the landscapes takes place in the interior’s intimacy. The idea is as simple as it is ingenious. All they have to do to create such an pinhole camera apartment is to entirely darken a room (probably using some kind of transparency) and adding a tiny pinhole to one of the windows. The result is an upside-down projection of the real world taking place everywhere inside, creating that astonishing effect of merging the outside landscape with the indoor space. ...

For the Skyway International Light Festival in Toruń (Poland), the Limelight Projections crew created this astonishing 3D projection mapping, which shows their vision of the heliocentric theory by Nicolaus Copernicus including the five elements (earth, fire, air, water and eather) as symbols for the planets… Our challange was to create a videomapping which is not only spectacular geometric elements moving around in 3D but rather a story. As you know, I’m a fan of those facade projections in public space, especially when they have such a high quality. Have fun while watching! ...

Art Installation | One of my favorite art galleries in Berlin will present a weekend of Parisian live art installations next week: Skalitzers presents ‘Earthbound Escape’, in association with DAS Weekend - a live art installation by Parisian artists Babou and Tanc, exploring the visual and emotional boundaries between art, music and life. (Skalitzers) Both arists have already been part of the “Kiss the City” exhibition last year, in which they presented their beautiful interpretations of tags. For that reason I’m looking forward to the upcoming show - I really want to see how Babou and Tanc sounds and ink… ...

Another kick-ass example for the multimedia ability of urban space: Andreas Heikaus from Hannover created a state of the art motion tracking system to project a speedrun of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. along a sidewalk. My first idea when I saw it, was that it would be even better on whole block of houses…fantastic idea, thumbs up… This video was part of my Bachelor thesis at the University of Applied science and art Hannover. The Super Mario Bros. game, released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, is not longer bound to the television size and get interactive with a new environment. The emphasis of my thesis is on the matchmoving work. It is the process of matching CG elements into live-action footage. (Andreas Heikaus) ...

Today I found that amazing audio/visual facade projection by Griduo in collaboration with Due3! It took place at the santralistanbul Art and Culture Center’s Main Gallery building located in Istanbul some month ago: “It is a live audio/visual performance composed of animated monochrome geometrical shapes matching the real size and form of the quadrilateral alluminium modules which form the facade of the building. ...

In the last month, I wrote a lot about building projections around the world, but I never saw an better one! The word of future is interactive - People don’t only want to be part of their environment, they want to create their environment with their own actions, they want interact with it. The new creative interaction collective YesYesNo, which is specialized in the creation of engaging, magical installations that combine creativity and artistic visions, recently turned the Auckland Ferry Building in Auckland City into an interactive playground: ...

3D video projections on buildings are a never ending story! There’s no week without new videos and photo of those great light projection artworks. These technically complex art installations are en vogue and possibly the urban communication tool of 2009. “Impressive and stylish projections on buildings, a renewing way of communicating.For those who want to carry out a message in a striking and visually attractive way with guaranteed exposure.” (NuFormer) ...