A group of highly motivated international students of the MediaLAB Amsterdam, in collaboration with vastly experienced producer Jan Scholte, Gijs Gootjes and upcoming artist Matthias Oostrik are developed a U-nnovative interactive projection for the closing ceremony of the E-culture fair, as part of the cultural capital of Europe Ruhr 2010.
With a projection area of over 600m2 this projection was the the biggest non commercial interactive projection ever to be seen and was developed together with high profle companies such as Virtueel Platform, Institute of Network Cultures and Amsterdam based Beam Systems, technical supplier and partner. The software is developed with Quartz Composer (an Apple developers environment for live video) and the beamers were Panasonic. For the game logic of the interaction, the team got the assistance of game designer Kars Alfrink from Hubbub.
The event, that took place in Dortmund on August 25th 2010 consisted of a full experience featuring an interactive urban projection, music, dance and video art. There were four individual stages on the square in front of the canvas, the old Dortmunder-U. This building previously used as a brewery has been re-opened to become the cultural and creative center of the Ruhr Area.
When a person steps on one of the stages their silhouette appears on one of the windows of the building. Depending on how the person moves the silhouette can move to other windows, leaving a trace where it has already been before. If two or more silhouettes meet on the same window there will be some creative content coming out, symbolizing the new use of the building as cultural hotspot.