From February 14th through the 11th the Le Zoo nightclub in Geneva, Switzerland hosted a five day projection art workshop. Traditionally workshops are one or two days. However the technical director of Le Zoo, Andrien Boulanger (aka Bou) wanted to have a workshop where the participants collectively used their newly learned skills, and the resources of Le Zoo, to create an installation for the parties of the coming weekend.
The workshop was conducted by Eric Morzier and I. Eleven people attended. With the exception of three people everyone was based in Geneva.
Each day started at 17h00. We started at 15h00 as the week wore on because the attendees needed more time and assistance in preparing their material. In the beginning we would finish around 19h00 and finished later towards the end with the participants VJing until 06h00 the next day. Yours trully has had his fill of staying up all night and would crawl into bed at 02h00.
The first day was dedicated to teaching Modul8. The second day was focused on MadMapper in conjunction with Modul8. Thursday and Friday were dedicated to assembling the installation and preparing materials for it.
With the conclusion of the first day Bou and I began setting up the mapping workshop for the next day. We had the slight misfortune of not being able to find white boxes in Geneva. We ended up buying regular brown boxes and painting them white. I think we had around 42 boxes. Luckily we had rollers instead of brushes, and the paint we had was water based and it dried quickly. Then Bou had to go about hanging all of the projectors while I made the box setups.
The setup requires that each participant have a table, projector and some kind of little installation of boxes or a model to map.
In previous workshops we have rigged the projectors using magic arms to the tables. The problem with this is that if the tables are shaky the projection moves every time someone leans on the table. As a result, I have been asking for the projectors to be rigged onto tripods placed next to the tables. In the case of Le Zoo the place is setup for hanging projectors almost anywhere.
It was actually a good thing that we did not have more than eleven people because we ended up having exactly one projector per-person. The ideal situation! In addition to the white boxes we also had some small scale models that were created for the very first MadMapping workshop last year.
I think we finished setting up around 02h00.
After a short presentation of MadMapper and its capabilities each participant was assigned to a projector and its accompanying installation. This part of the workshop is always my favorite. The room is dark with the exception of the projectors and the glowing faces of the participants illuminated by their laptop screens. I put some music on and coast around the room answering questions and taking pictures. My bad this time for not taking photos of each setup and the results. It is high on my priority list for next time.

As this went on, Eric, Bou and I discussed how we would organize a collective installation for the club nights. It was difficult to imagine how we would get a group of people to build an installation collectively. We did not want to impose a singular vision, otherwise the participants might feel left out of the process.
With this in mind at the end day, we opened the discussion to the rest of the group. We explained what the goals were and what materials were available to them: the boxes we used that day, mosquito nets etc. We also established the rig. There would be two projectors for the stage using one DualHead2go and two projectors and TripleHead2go with two projectors somewhere in the center above the dance floor, thus allowing two VJ’s to perform at the same time.
Because we had no HD mixers on hand, two computers would be dedicated to the setup and the VJ’s would load their files onto the computers. We also established a template for output from Modul8: three layers for each composition with the layers arranged one beside the other so that MadMapper would receive a texture at the size of 1920 x 480. In Modul8, the layer on the left would be dedicated to the sculpture on the left, the layer in the center would be dedicated to the scupture on the right and the third layer could be used optionally for a direct output on both without individual quad warpings, just a mask in MadMapper to keep the projection within the sculpture.
Peter Lund’s perspective.
This third layer output would exist as a simple quad with a mask above it. Because Syphon supports alpha channels, when there is no content in the layer or the layer is off then no content would be displayed. This quad can live below or above the warped quads depending on how someone wanted to arrange their content. The final output on both setups was 2048 x 768.
We also had a Codanova VMX 64 on hand. While it’s MIDI feedback capability was not available yet I found it to be very useful for the setup we had created. It allows for changing media in 8 layers divided into groups a and b with the top group using media sets 1 through 4 and the bottom using media sets 5 through 8. It will be great to have MIDI feedback for this controller so that my idea can be fully implemented with feedback.
I have provided the MIDI template as well as the Modul8 and MadMapper files for research purposes. If you have a VMX 64 give this template a try and let me know what you think.
The next day we all assembled on the stage and almost collectively (with some urging on the part of the instruction and technical team) it was decided to use all of the boxes from the workshop to create an ‘organic’ (i.e. random) arrangement of the boxes on both sides of the stage and a sort of floating island of boxes above the dance floor.

The participants were then divided into three groups, each group working on one of the areas. It was fun to watch how the stage came together.
Unfortunately the floating ‘island’ above the dance floor was not coming together so well. The more we looked at it the more we became convinced that its presence would destabilize the ‘jumbled harmony’ of the box installation on the stage. As is faithfully documented in the video, it was decided, rather forcefully on Bou and my part that the island be taken down and the boxes re-assembled into similar clusters so as to compliment the structures on the stage. We finished around 23h00. Because of the template some of the participants already started producing material.
Before leaving we discussed the club nights. The people who had already started with thier material would perform on the first night, for the drum and bass party, and the remainder on the second night for the techno party. Of the participants who were eager to do the mapping of the structure there was Jürgen, a motion designer and VJ from Zürich, Peter Lund from Hamburg and Linda Cavaliero from Geneva. Jürgen had other commitments for the weekend and took on mapping the sculptures on the stage. Peter and Linda divided up the mid section sculptures. As soon as the mappings were ready the MadMapper files were passed on to everyone who was working on their content.


Jürgen mapping it.
By 23h00 the first group was ready and the party was under way. It was really satisfying to see how it all came together. As is mostly the case, the feedback comes not so much from the audience but from the people working in the club. It was from the club crew itself that we received lots of compliments. I also learned the following day that the guest DJ’s approached the VJ’s and complimented them on the setup.
The second night, techno night. The remainder of the participants loaded in their materials. Some of them working on new clips in the back stage area until they were ready to go on. Participants from the previous night also showed up to hang out and these were still eager to perform with the installation again. Given the amount of hours available there was plenty of time to spare.

Techno night.
Thus far I have done seven mapping oriented workshops. Each one is always a little bit different. Some of them have been one day. Some are two days with one day for mapping on boxes and the second for just being creative with the space and the objects available in it. This workshop was by far the most complete experience. It is often said that ‘less is more.’ For design esthetics, food and furniture yes. But for a proper mapping workshop having more time is definitely better. With more time something complete can be achieved that everyone can learn from and be excited about.