More details from The Projection Studio (www.theprojectionstudio.com):
All Souls, which stands at the end of the High Street and was consecrated in 1895, is a fairly conventional parish church of its era, however it has the unusual feature of four stunning stained glass windows depicting the four Archangels – Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and Raphael.
Ashton and Monid took these windows and the vivid colors of the peacock feathers making up their wings as the starting point of their concept.
The idea was to produce a double centerpiece which worked both inside and outside the church, with Monid’s soundscape tying the two zones together.
The sounds of birdsong and angelic voices ran inside the church, where the interior was lit entirely with candlelight, except for the angel windows, which were illuminated from the outside by spotlights, creating a very special ambience that was ideal for reflection, contemplation and calm.
Outside the soundtrack played alongside Ashtons’ frieze of animated Archangels. Laid out against a kaleidoscopic feather based background, they were projected across the entire front of the Church, covering an area 16 meters wide by 10 metres tall.
The motion graphics were created by The Projection Studio’s Sang Gun Kim based on concepts and photographic work undertaken by Ashton.
The name ‘Spiritus’ was based on a quote from 4th century philosopher St Augustine referring to the spirituality of the angels’ office, and also to this spirituality being the essence of inspiration and absorbing thought.
The projector was a Panasonic PT-DZ21K, supplied by Creative Technology and operated by Paul Moreland. Fitted with a 1.3 lens it was located 25 meters away pointing out of an office window across the road from the church – the optimum projection position.
The advantages of the PT-DZ21K are that it can run off a 13 Amp socket, is relatively compact, very straightforward to install and extremely bright.
The looped video content was run from a Macintosh laptop and all the warping and perspective correction was achieved using Panasonic’s proprietary software tools.
Sound was run from a 24-track ADAT machine supplied by Projection Studio, processed through a Soundcraft mixing desk. Outside it was relayed via a pair of d&b E9 speakers and inside, they hooked into the Church’s in-house speaker system. The Church also supplied all the candles.
The event was a massive success. The projections ran for one night and attracted hundreds of people, promoting Strange Cargo’s Brigitte Orasinski to comment, “It was truly magical and I know it will be talked about for years to come”.
Ashton concludes, “It’s great working on projects like this especially as this was the first arts festival on this scale ever to be held in Cheriton … and congratulations to Strange Cargo for pulling it off. The reaction of the public was fantastic. Taking a little known local treasure and re-connecting it to the community is very satisfying.”
