The Urbanscreen artist group from Bremen have plunged the Gasometer in Oberhausen into a perfect light illusion as part of the giant multimedia installation “320° Licht”. The precise measurement of space is the basis for this digital art. Leica Geosystems has been providing Urbanscreen with the most up-to-date scanners since 2012 and such products like the ScanStation P20 make this modern artistic mode of expression possible. 320° Licht is open to the public as part of the “Appearance of Beauty” exhibition and runs until the end of 2014.
The Gasometer, which closed twenty years ago in the Ruhr metropolis Oberhausen, was a landmark of the coal, iron and steel industry and is still an emblem of the region. Since 1994, the former gas holder has been an exhibition hall and has made a name for itself in the world of art. It has always been a constant challenge to fill the empty space above the actual exhibition area, with the dome’s dimensions rising to a height of more than 100-metres and its diameter to 60 metres. However, this empty space provides the perfect projection area for the media art of Urbanscreen, the artist group from Bremen.
Reality and virtuality
The creators of the light show, world-famous for their illumination of the Sydney Opera House in 2012, use 21 projectors to bring shapes and moving patterns to the inner areas of the Gasometer to fuse virtual art with real space. In order to achieve this effect, the images must be precisely distorted and then adjusted to the shape of the room. The virtual projection surfaces, which are used to digitally create these worlds of light, come alive as a result of these surfaces being precisely measured. Thorsten Bauer, Creative Director at Urbanscreen, makes no secret of his enthusiasm for Leica Geosystems: “The people at Leica Geosystems are our heroes, because they’ve developed devices that succeed in transforming enormous spaces into a digital illusion in incredible detail.”
High-precision 3D point clouds
The ScanStation P20, a 3D laser scanner from Leica Geosystems, makes these illusions possible. It delivers millions of individual data points that are combined to create a 3D point cloud. These point clouds depict reality in incredible, highly detailed 3D reality. Using Leica Geosystems’ CloudWorx plugin, a 3D surface model can be created from the point cloud data and transferred to Urbanscreen’s 3ds Max 3D designer software. This model is used as a virtual projection surface, or as the background for the perfect distortion of the images, the animations and the videos. Bauer, Creative Director at Urbanscreen, describes the process as follows: “We validate reality with the device, transfer it to the digital world, edit it there and then bring it back to reality.” This creates spaces that have a life of their own and sometimes, it seems heaven comes just a little bit closer to the observer.
The “320° Licht” media installation will be in the Gasometer in Oberhausen until 31/12/2014.
You’ll find more information on Urbanscreen’s media art at: http://www.urbanscreen.com/
For more information on the ScanStation P20, go to http://www.leica-geosystems.com/scanstation_p20
The Leica ScanStation P20 delivers high-precision 3D point clouds for the presentation.
Urbanscreen use 21 projectors for the light show to bring shapes and moving patterns to the inner surfaces of the Gasometer and by doing so, fuse virtual art with real space.
Copyright all images: Urbanscreen