Antartica – While You Were Sleeping

PROJECTION

Antartica – While You Were Sleeping

by Cat Strom.
Photo Credits: Joseph Michael

Big Picture Australia & New Zealand  and New Zealand artist Joseph Michael translated the scale and awe of Antarctica by using Auckland’s War Memorial Museum as the canvas for a full-scale 360-degree projection of a majestic iceberg.

The multi-sensory experience was brought to life with Michael’s beautiful imagery and the cracking, creaking sounds of the ice. With a score composed by Rhian Sheehan, Antarctica – While You Were Sleeping was a collision of nature and architecture that captured the grandeur of one of the most beautiful and remote places on Earth.

The Antarctica project was a four year vision from Joseph Michael, and ran over several nights. Big Picture partnered with Joseph to design and deliver the projection, playback and audio systems for the event.

The project was delivered using 20-plus Barco FLM-HD20 and HDF-W26 projectors, covering all four sides of the Museum. The projectors were arranged in pairs, for redundancy, brightness and to suit the challenging site layout and building shape. The disguise pre-vis and multi edit function played an important part in this incredible project. disguise was chosen for a number of key features including 3D model texture playback, which never missed a beat, and multi-user projection alignment.

The disguise pre visualisation also played a key role; as Antarctica was a 360 degree projection, it was important to see how the content would look from any angle at any given time. The 1.2TB show file was managed was by three disguise 4×4 servers arranged in main/backup configuration.

A detailed 1 billion point laser scan of the Museum was made to UV map the 3D model.

“disguise was chosen because of its ability for  the artist to pre visualise the project, and ability to handle the large high resolution show files with ease,” commented Paul Carppe, General Manager at Big Picture NZ.

Paul designed the projection system and managed the technical delivery. Site challenges to overcome included the locations of the ten projection towers, as the Museum is located on a hill which includes very steep and uneven gradients. At the same time, mapping around obstructions such as large native protected trees was tricky.

Delainy Kennedy from Nocturnal was a key creative collaborator and managed the onsite delivery and content management of the disguise system.

This article first appeared in the October 2018 edition of CX Magazine – in print and online. CX Magazine is Australia and New Zealand’s only publication dedicated to entertainment technology news and issues. Read all editions for free or search our archive www.cxnetwork.com.au

© CX Media

The October 2018 edition CX Magazine was about ‘Projection’. Read more:

Creative Projection Mapping with TDC’s Pete Lynn
Antartica – While You Were Sleeping
Choosing the Best Projector
Technology Engages Students in Learning
From Projector to Plate – Encore Serve up a Sensory Feast
3D Modular Panels for Projection Mapping
Borderless Projection in the Age of LED
Video Projection History – The Talaria
Simon Byrne: Let There Be Projected Light
Duncan Fry: Snow Job – The Projector from the Smithsonian