Swedish show control developer and manufacturer, Dataton, has announced the supply of WATCHOUT, its multi-display and show-management software to Les Baux de Provence, a new art show in the south of France.
The art installation is the result of a collaboration between the town of Baux de Provence and French venue management specialists Culturespaces. Set in a labyrinth of nearby old, abandoned, chalk-mining tunnels, Carrières de Lumières’ (‘Quarries of Light’) transforms the tunnels into an art space.
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The chalky walls of Carrières de Lumières reach heights of between 10 and 15 metres, within the 200-metre tunnels. The wall’s texture adds extra interest to the images projected onto them and these can be viewed both close-up and from a distance away, adding a new dimension to the artistic content on display.
The new attraction opened its doors to visitors in March 2012 with the show ‘Gauguin, Van Gogh, les peintres de la couleur, ’ and was commissioned by Culturespace founder Bruno Monnier from Gianfranco Iannuzzi. The show projects still shots and animated videos of the work of two of history’s most famous artists and uses both the floor and walls of the tunnels as projection surfaces.
This is complemented by a subtly installed audio system, which plays 12-track musical backgrounds through 50 speakers spotted throughout the tunnels. Astage-lighting, which use LED sources, light up the stone with raking lights when projected images are not being shown.
The show uses 68 ceiling-mounted video projectors with their own individual server content, each running a dedicated Dataton WATCHOUT channel. These also run in sync with a second machine using the Medialon Manager show-control system, bringing the total amount of devices used in Carrières de Lumières to 70. These are all kept in a control room which is air-conditioned and only accessible by the show’s staff.
Vedemus, Dataton’s preferred WATCHOUT partner for France, supplied the servers and worked closely with the installation team, led by technical manager Sebastien Chapuis, and with project staff Mathieu Delfine, Florence Amat and Agathe Poisson.
“The project team liked the WATCHOUT solution because of its simplicity, ” explains Eric Lambert, managing director, Videmus.
“As well as ensuring that all the projectors receive their video content at full resolution and in perfect sync with each other, WATCHOUT also uses MIDI commands to sequence the on-site audio DSP settings so that the right soundtrack is played through the right speakers at the right time, while at the same time controlling a DMX-512 universe for the LED lighting.”
He went on to explain that the Medialon Manager show-control system manages all of the above, operating on a seven-day calendar which runs the show at the correct time each day, without the need for staff intervention.
Fredrik Svahnberg, Marketing Director, Dataton stated that the use of WATCHOUT has made for a “fantastic space in which to appreciate art” and said that he feels the show will increase appreciation for both the art on show and the old quarry.
Show designer Gianfranco Iannuzzi added that the support of Videmus during the deployment of WATCHOUT was invaluable.
“They allowed me to devote myself entirely to the design and content creation which, with the help of my staff, Massimiliano Siccardi and Renato Gatto, we managed to realize on time and with, we believe, truly unique results, ” he said.
The latest version of Dataton’s WATCHOUT (5.2) is due to be shown at industry trade show InfoComm 2012 at Las Vegas Convention Center on June 13-15 at Booth N1641.
