DURHAM, UK – Lumière 2011 features the work of dozens of artists, lighting designers and community groups in 35 installations, bringing a “sparkle of magic” to the medieval city of Durham. The highlight was Crown of Light, a son-et-lumière that uses the architecture of Durham Cathedral as its canvas. Created by projection artist Ross Ashton, Crown of Light
involved a team of specialists including The Projection Studio and White Light Ltd.
More details from The Projection Studio (http://www.projecting.co.uk) and White Light Ltd. (http://www.whitelight.ltd.uk):
DURHAM, UK – Lumiere 2011 features the work of dozens of artists, lighting designers and community groups in 35 installations, bringing a “sparkle of magic” to the medieval city. The highlight was Crown of Light, a son-et-lumiere that uses the architecture of Durham Cathedral as its canvas.
Created by renowned projection artist Ross Ashton, Crown of Light draws its visual material from inside the cathedral itself and from the Lindisfarne Gospels. Images from the Gospels are spread across the entire face of the Cathedral.
“Crown of Light” covered the entire north fascia of the cathedral including all sides of the three towers, and was the festival’s largest installation.
Ashton created the projection show’s storyboard after an initial brief from Artichoke’s Helen Marriage and Nicky Webb. He took ideas related to its narrative and direction and then added and developed his own input.
Ashton and Paul Chatfield evolved the PIGI projection images in collaboration with musical director Robert Ziegler, who compiled a soundscape for the 16-minute show. Ashton sourced images from the British Library and also conducted a photo shoot at the cathedral to record all the architectural and structural elements he wanted to incorporate into the show.
The projection system comprised 7 PIGI 6KW machines with double rotating scrollers, positioned at various distances around the Cathedral – the longest throw distance was 150 meters and the shortest just 20 meters. This was carefully calculated to eliminate any shadowing from the trees around the Cathedral Gardens – and was also a primary creative and technical challenge of the project.
The seven PIGI projectors were supplied by entertainment lighting specialist White Light, continuing a collaboration with Ashton that has encompassed projects from Edinburgh to New York. The projectors were placed in six different locations, fitted with five different types of lenses, ranging from a 10cm wide angle lens to an 85 cm long throw lens. Images from each individual machine enveloped a separate zone of the Cathedral’s architecture in colorful, bold, detailed imagery.
“White Light is a valued partner on my projects,” Ashton notes. “They are helpful and accommodating, and work hard to make sure that everything goes well prior to delivery and during the operation of the kit.”
“Ross’s projects are always something to behold,” comments White Light’s Hire Director Dave Isherwood, “and we are always delighted to be part of them. As ever, we hope that our work in preparing the PIGIs will go unseen so that visitors to Durham can just marvel at the dramatic images magically spread across the width of the cathedral.”
The PIGI film scrolls were about 15 meters in length, for which the PIGI artwork assembled and pre-corrected for perspective and keystoning in Photoshop.
The show was programmed into E/T/C’s PC-based OnlyCue controller and operated by Karen Monid. It featured smooth movement dissolves, transitions and other subtleties for which the OnlyCue / PIGI combination is renowned. Monid is also an expert in optimizing this control system.
Projection Studio’s Steve Larkins dealt with all the project logistics, with Cy Doddimead and Michael Barry tech’ing the projectors, which were all housed in custom weatherized hides for the duration.
This show ran eight times each night and helped to draw more than 100,000 people into the city to enjoy this and all the other works.
