Epson, the laser projection specialist, has been involved in a project to create an immersive visitor experience at Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, near Milan, Italy.
Epson is pleased to highlight a recent project at the Accademia Carrara art museum in Bergamo, which involved the creation of a new immersive experience following the discovery of a lost work of art. The art museum is home to around 1800 items from the beginning of the 15th century to the end of the 19th century, including the main Italian painting schools and the transalpine paintings of Flanders and Holland.
Researchers discovered a small cross in the corner of one of the paintings in the museum’s storage, The Resurrection of Christ, which turned out to be a clue to a missing section of the piece. Following this, a match was found in a private collection in the US, a work of art called the Descent into Limbo by master Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna.
An exciting discovery
The painting held by the museum was originally part of a larger work from 1492 that has been divided into two. After this discovery, the world’s foremost Mantegna expert, Keith Christiansen of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, confirmed that the Resurrection was by the master artist.
To showcase the discovery and tell the story, Accademia Carrara worked with Epson, Museyoum and Zebra to create a unique and immersive visitor experience.
This new exhibition is designed to celebrate the discovery and reunite the separated pieces of art using immersive technology, for an engaging and multi-sensory experience.
Thanks to Epson’s 3LCD 4K enhanced shade projection, the smallest of details in the process of analysis, restoration, shade and touch can be seen by visitors in clear detail. The resolution achieved was 12.348×1.080 pixels for the walls and 4.050×1.558 for the floor: in total more than 19 million pixels.
Within the 360° experiential space, guests feel a part of the action. The project used twelve 15,000-lumen WUXGA 3LCD EPSON laser projectors (EB-L1755U) that projected seamlessly on walls and floor using edge blending.
By using ELPLX02 ultra-short-throw lenses with no projection offset, the project was able to prevent the formation of shadows caused by the transit of people, leading to an increased usable area. This means that a 1.80m tall person can stand one meter away from the wall without casting any shadows.
Compact & reliable solutions
With L1755U projectors, the multimedia system was able to be included in the structure of the room and the project leveraged the skylights to cool the laser light source. The technological infrastructure was completely automated: two linked Z Servers by ZEBRA managed edge-blending, geometric correction, audio-video synchronisation, content playback, system scheduling and remote control.
The exhibition attracted tens of thousands of visitors and helped Accademia Carrara transform the way it communicates to its audience. It has also extended the reach and appeal of the museum’s art collection.
Gianpietro Bonaldi, Chief Operating Officer Accademia Carrara, says: “A museum of ancient art and cutting-edge technology came together to tell an extraordinary story. We are particularly pleased with the result achieved.
“The technological infrastructure perfectly reproduces the vividness of colours, ensuring an extraordinary experience: visitors, entering the space, find themselves authentically immersed in the work of art.”
Manuel Bedin, Chief Technical Officer ZEBRA Multimedia Immersive Solutions adds: “We chose Epson projectors because a perfect colourimetric yield was essential to perfectly represent the painting, thanks to 3LCD technology and the great strides made on the black level.
“In addition, versatility and ease of programming of Epson projectors, combined with a wide range of lenses, enabled us to achieve this excellent result
“The Epson ultra-short throw lenses have unique features: are the only ones on the market that have zero offsets, actually negative. This allows to create immersive projections in almost every space, without the need for high ceilings (needed with other UST lenses).”
Epson also recently provided over 500 high lumen laser projectors and lenses for the new teamLab Borderless museum in Shanghai.
