Testing projections at The Word

On Friday I visited The Word to do some technical research in preparation towards my forthcoming exhibition in the Story World area of The Word.

Story World is a white space with four slightly curved walls and four projectors that project onto each of the four walls to create an immersive environment.

I had prepared a number of videos and still images with different aspect ratios and wanted to establish which format would be the best for the room, and whether I would need to create masks in order to avoid any of the projections bleeding onto the wall or floor.

The image above was an animation made on clear 16mm film stock. The colours were not as vibrant as I had expected, possibly because the room is not totally dark. There was some bleed on the floor, and when the projection went to the ceiling, the projector shadow was visible.

I also noticed that the edges of the shapes in the animation did not seem as crisp as they appear on the original film, but this will be because of the amount that the image has been enlarged by.

The image below shows a projection of an animation that I made using the black 16mm film strip.

The image above shows a panoramic view of the 3 walls with the same projection on.

In these images, the projections with the hexagonal patterns have been applied with a template so that the top part of the wall is not projected on. This eliminates the shadow from the projector from being in sight. The other wall with the black film image still has the bleed on the floor, but the image goes all the way to the top of the wall.

These show the projection with the template applied reducing bleed to the ceiling and floor.

My mission now is to decide what I prefer and create an appropriate template for my footage prior to creating the video file to be projected. Wish me luck!

Site visit - Story World, The Word, South Shields

This morning anthropologist David Dupuis and I had a fascinating meeting with Richard Barber, Cultural Development Officer at South Tyneside Council and Mike Hamilton Strategic ICT Manager at The Word, National Centre for the written word in South Shields.

We are beginning to work on an audio-visual installation that will be exhibited at The Word in April 2018, and the meeting today was specifically to get access to the room where the installation will take place and get an idea of the facilities that can be used. This is no ordinary room, in the Story World space it is possible to create a 360 degree surround sound and visual experience.

Today we saw it being used to full effect with a group of school children. The students were really impressed, as were we!

The visuals can be projected on all walls in the rooms, helping to create the atmosphere of actually being in the environment depicted in the scene. For example, space imagery can be used to transport you into space! With 5 projectors, there are various possibilities in terms of screening photographs or static images alongside moving image, using all or a selection of the walls, repeating images around the space, having different images appear at different times on different walls and so forth.

The room has proven to be very popular with school groups who have been doing creative writing exercises in there. The pupils write as they sit in the projected landscape listening to sounds from that specific scene. Teachers have commented how much the quality of the student's writing has improved since using the Story World facilities.

I am excited and really pleased to be using the space in a less conventional way, and am ever so grateful to the staff at the Word who are ever so helpful and enthusiastic.