034 REPORT


Friedrich Förster


Sabine Weißinger CASA MAGICA


Where in the entertainment mix is the projection industry right now? Let’s assume we talk about projection in the sense of image projection by light through optical systems onto a surface. In that case, video projection is at present THE medium. Technologically at the point to satisfy the needs of cinema, and at the same time pushed and strengthened by the possibilities of digital film production. In the past, film projectors and the other large or small scale analogue slide / scrolling film projectors served different cultural sectors. While film projectors mainly belonged to cinema, since the 1950s large format slide projectors have been a standard scenographic tool in theatre, opera and musical halls. For some years, these sectors and their surrounding fields of activity like architectural projection, multimedia art, and sound and light shows, have merged. To a large extent, video projection can cover the features of all kinds of analogue image projection, however, each of the ‘old’ technologies has specific characteristics and excellence, which will make them survive not only with those who cannot yet afford video technology, but by those who deliberately choose and focus on those specific qualities and suitability for special tasks. What we do not know is whether, or for how long, this interest will be enough to keep alive the respective equipment, materials and the knowledge. Possibly we will observe sooner or later their near extinction and then their rediscovery by people who search for non-mainstream, less known creative tools.


The fact that video projection allows, with no big problems and with only a limited amount of setbacks, the changeover from the analogue tools, is pleasing. How- ever, this is not the most interesting or important point. Rather, we are curious what changes and developments in our, and our colleagues picture language, the new and additional possibilities of video projection in conjunction with the tools of digital image creation and processing will provoke.


What do you regard as the most important technological development of the last 20 years?


The software tools to compose, process and finally perform images and film digitally. What equipment do you use?


Large scale analogue image projectors: Pani slide and scroll projectors, Hardware Xenon scroll projectors (now owned by Pani) and ETC Pigi scroll projectors. Large DLP video projectors: Christie Roadster and Roadie series. Moving head video projectors: Beamover (Amptown). Moving head Gobo projectors (with customised gobos): Vari-Lite 3000 and Martin Professional MAC 2000


Is it easier to do your job now than five years ago? Yes and no. Our special interest of creating site-specific architectural projections, for many years was - and still is to some extent - falling between all stools. It did not fit in any known drawer, which allowed us the opportunity to stray in many different creative fields. And on the side of clients, producers, agents and audiences, the


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expectations about the aesthetic result were open and rather vague. They needed to welcome the idea to get something unique. To some extent, the fact that few people knew or had ever seen the tools necessary to perform a large format projection, contributed to this situation, which might have made our life’s more difficult in some moments, but which also secured us more freedom in the first place.


What we experience now is, that as soon as ‘video’ is in view, everybody believes that they know already what the possible result will be and / or should be. Like what one mostly gets on TV, in computer games or - to name also the other side - as a mainstream in the museum video art section.


If in the past a certain sticking point had been that people could not imagine enough what we do, now people sometimes imagine too clearly what they expect us to do. Apart from that, naturally digital projection makes some things easier; editing, for example. That’s helpful and appreciated in the creative process.


What has given you the most creative satisfaction to date? We have completed many diverse projects through the many years of our practice, and thus we have not one that’s most satisfying. However, let’s pick three high- lights, each standing for a ‘family’ of projects with similar creative (and therefore also technical) approach: Cologne Cathedral (‘LichtRaum Dom’): animated indoor projection using classical scrolling large format projectors. Cathedral of Learning Pittsburgh (‘Gutenberg’): still image projection on University Tower (using classi- cal large format projectors). And Horus Temple Edfu/Egypt (mondo*dr - 20.6): new permanent sound and light show, integrating animated image projection and dynamic lighting, using fixed and moving head video projectors.


What does the future hold?


Private, as well as all kinds of public spaces, will be more occupied by light and images. Projected and on displayed, indoor and outdoor, night and day. And these images will be more and more animated images.


What would you like it to hold? We assume that one basic rule of human perception will persist: that the attractive- ness of any medium or genre is based on the experience of its absence or contrast. Even Times Square, that buzz of competing events seen as a whole, needs its quiet backroads, or the unspectacular homes of its visitors. Light / projection work needs its expansion space of darkness to unfold its intended aesthetic features and quality. You’d think this commonplace, but experience - mainly in outdoor productions - shows that often it is not. And instead of providing this prerequisite, people try to top or beat encroaching elements by entering an arms race. So it is one of our wishes for the future that the mentioned precondition of projection will not become such an extravagance, that hardly anybody (the audience and the creators) can enjoy it. www.casamagica.de


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