The Macula, a Czech video-mapping company, recently mesmerized a private audience of 600 VIP guests at the Rudolfinum music auditorium with Sim/Nebula, a 45-minute long video mapping performance accompanied by the Czech Philharmonic orchestra, led by internationally renowned conductor Jiří Bělohlávek, the former principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Check out a behind-the-scenes look at Sim/Nebula:
The project marked the first fully immersive video mapping performance ever created in Czech Republic, involving a live orchestra of 118 musicians and projections on four sides of the auditorium (front, two sides, and ceiling).
This performance is arguably the longest video mapping project ever created, according the the creators. The content was broken into seven themes (matter, technology, message, mission, new world, rendez-vous, and birth), expressing visual futuristic poems, and shaping the emergence of a cybernetic organism. The project was developed in collaboration with 11 international artists (from UK, France, Switzerland, Turkey, Slovakia, and Czech Republic).
To bring the performance to life on four different projection surfaces, The Macula used a total of 10 Barco digital projectors: four Barco HDX-W20 Flex 3-Chip DLP WUXGA projectors, two Barco FLM-R22 SXGA+ units, and four SLM-R12+ Performers. Resolume Arena 4 was coupled to two custom media servers for the native blending. The four Barco HDX projectors in quadrant layout projected content on the main facade while the FLMs were dedicated to each side. To further enhance the immersion, four Barco SLM projectors mapped the ceiling of the Rudolfinum.
When all compositions were blended together, the resolution reached 16,000 pixels at 80,000 frames (30fps). On the production front, The Macula relied on Maxon Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects software to create the content and ensure seamless transitions between 3D and 2D.
The event was organized by the Czech Savings Bank (Česká spořitelna), the largest bank in Czech Republic. The Rudolfinum project was first discussed at the 2014 Signal Festival, when producer Martin Posta met with Josef Havelka who was looking at connecting the best of Czech tradition with a cutting-edge audio visual performance for the bank’s 190th anniversary.
Posta notes, "Our main challenge was to coordinate those 11 artists from around the world to create a highly qualitative artistic content in less than two months." The creative concept was curated by Amar Mulabegovic from The Macula.
See more footage:
CONCEPT
PRODUCER
Martin Pošta, Signal Festival
VISUAL ARTISTS
Amar Mulabegović, Can Büyükberber, Osman Koç, Federico Eero Pelat Supranutz, Deniz Kader & Candas Sisman from Nohlab, Simon Jones from SR partners, Istvan Chaotic Atmospheres, Jan 'Slejdy' Sládečko, Jan Šíma, Petr Foltera, Jakub Zuščín
MUSIC PERFORMED
Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek and Czech philharmonic orchestra
PRODUCTION TEAM
Petr Hozman, Roman Dušek, Cyril Hořánek, Lucia Horňáková, Roman Edr, Nikola Lörinczová
CLIENT
Česka spořitelna
VIDEO
Michal Ureš and Amar Mulabegović
EDIT
Jan Slejdy Sladečko