Mapping Festival,Geneva, Switzerland
First time working with lasers, and first time running lasers
and projection on the same object. The surface was a geometric
wooden construction, which is exactly the right kind of object for it:
it has faces and it has edges.
1 / What it had to do
Two kinds of light on one object, and I had not used
either of them this way before. Projection and lasers do not
behave alike. Projection is additive and needs something to land on:
it fills planes, carries image and colour, and dies the moment
there is any ambient light in the room. A laser draws a line
and is visible in the air itself, so it needs no surface at all
and survives light that would wash a projector out.
Put both on one structure and the question stops being how
each looks on its own. It becomes which one is doing what.
2 / The idea
A geometric wooden construction is the right object for that
question, because it is made of the two things each light is
good at. It has faces, which is what a projector wants, and
it has edges, which is what a laser draws. The structure hands
you the division for free — the work is deciding whether
to take it. Say how you actually split them: projection
on the planes and laser on the edges, or something else,
and what happened where the two overlapped.
3 / How it works
Mapped in MadMapper, on a physical structure rather
than a flat surface, so the map had to hold up from
the angle the audience actually stood at rather
than from where the projector sat.
The lasers were driven from the same file, from same
controller, not synchronized with projection,
but audioreactive from microphone of computer.
- Wooden structure
- Survey the geometry
- MadMapper
- Projection on the object
- Lasers
- Keep the two in register
4 / What HAPPENED
This educational experience provided me
a foundation that helped to start working as a VJ
and visual artist.