Inspired by both Leeds light night and Liverpool's River of light, my design comes from emphasising how light changes a space.
I felt this could be relevant to three of the Briefs. To present an audience with an empty room, but evoke different feelings through projection. Not only does it ineract with the audience's feelings but it also emphasises the power of an overlooked feature of spaces- lighting.
Entering a public space, it is often that people only necessarily take in the physical interior decor, than the way in which the lighting builds an ambience. This concept will bring the effect of lighting to the surface.
To use a projection to make a room feel like a warm summer's day, to then make it feel ominous, or cold all using projections, emphasises to the power of lighting to an audience.
Projection mapping is a technique that has been increased in usage over the past few years, almost to the extent where it feels to me, like the novelty has worn off. It is in theory, a very simple idea- projections are warped when placed onto different surfaces. To factor in the exact measurements and nuances of these surfaces, can make a light display that interacts with the object it is being projected onto. Projection mapping has been used in the Van Gogh Exhibit in Amsterdam, and similarly the exhibit in York also. When done well, admittedly, the effects are beautiful and serene, and this is the idea I would love to take on with my project design.
Projection mapping has also been used well with Disney Imagineering, projections have been used to aid in bringing the magic of Disney's animatronics to life. Animatronic mouth movements are especially hard to make fluid, even the most advanced of their animatronics lose their realism from their mouth movements. Projection mapping creates the animatronic's mouth with light, and is a great example of just how convincing projections can be, as shown in Lightning McQueen's Race Academy attraction.
Alongside coloured lighting and projection mapping, another way in which the audience can be showed the power of light is through utilising an age old lighting trick, the Pepper's Ghost Effect. It is a great example of an old example of futuristic technology that can still impress an audience to this day.
This is trick is used liberally throughout Disney attractions such as the Haunted Mansion, which absolutely astounded me when I visited it:
But also, combined with newer technology, the Peppers Ghost effect has been updated to create the 'ABBA' voyage tour, where the members of ABBA appear as holograms on a stage- a very well recieved technological risk. Before this, in 2012, the effect was also used to create a hologram of Tupac Shakur on stage.
To present an audience at first, with a seemingly blank room, and then use all three of these lighting capabilities to transform the space would, I feel, be an excellent way to exemplify the power of lighting to an audience. To make a seemingly blank room full of sunlight and nature one minute, to then having a ghost like figure appear in it the next; I would display an array of technology to an audience, from the more recent projection mapping, to the long used- and still effective, Pepper's Ghost effect.
