Project: Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum Projection-Mapped For Centennial Ball

November 17, 2014 by Dave Haynes

Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum’s amazing geometric facade got projection-mapped by Montreal’s Moment Factory the other night for the ROM’s Centennial Ball.

Here’s how Moment Factory describes the night:

True to the company’s reputation for creating exceptional environments through storytelling and technology, Moment Factory designed a cohesive, multi-zone experience also inspired by the ROM’s vision of discovery. As the evening unfolded, the fundraiser’s 600 invited celebrities, politicians, and philanthropists became active participants in this living story.

ARRIVAL OF GUESTS

As guests arrived to dine, dance, and fete inside the museum’s galleries, the night began with an exterior light animation that turned the ROM’s Daniel Libeskind-designed facade into a geometric dance of colors and triangles that referenced the building’s unique angular architecture. Inside, guests were guided towards the dimly-lit Spirit House room, where a light beam-installation that resembled the building’s architecture served as a portal of transition into the evening.

ARTIFACTS COMING TO LIFE

Then, in Chen Crystal Court, the real stars of the ball were eight artifacts, selected by the museum, and transformed by Moment Factory into a generative art piece projected onto a giant screen. Moment Factory’s artists created high-quality video treatments that gave each artwork a new and ever-changing kaleidoscopic look, generated in real time and inspired by the building’s architecture.

PERFORMANCE & CELEBRATION

After dining in the museum’s venerable galleries, guests adjourned to Currely Hall and Chen Court for dancing and entertainment, which featured Moment Factory’s sound-generated visual projections, which reacted in real time to the evening’s music. As two violinists, a DJ and a percussionist performed, their music stimulated beautiful imagery built on color, light, movement, and texture.

OUR APPROACH

To achieve this feat, Moment Factory worked intensely on the evening’s art direction, and employed the Touch Designer software to generate its visuals in real time. An onsite VJ operated the software live, activating presets at  appropriate times.

This ethereal, improvisational approach, says multimedia director Tarik Mikou, was inspired by the temporary nature of a major cultural event that lives for just one evening.