News

Barco brightens up Helsinki's winter nights

Finland - The Season of Light festival used two Barco XLM HD30 projectors to illuminate Senate Square in Helsinki. The festival took place early January and presented two façade light-art installations.

Season of Light is an annual light-art festival in Helsinki. During the dark winter month of January, two façade light performances gave the country's capital an exciting atmosphere. Both installations, Reflections at Senate Square and Oratoribus at Parliament House, were created by lighting designer Mikki Kunttu.

The performance at Senate Square is a 15-minute story, projected on the façade of Helsinki Cathedral. Reflections is a voyage through time into the past and onwards into a world of fantasy. Senate Square and its surroundings return to the year 1852 when the St Nicholas church - now Helsinki Cathedral - was inaugurated. Starting with history, the light installation transforms into a world of fantasy in which imaginary vines climb up the columns of the cathedral, while various lights, colours, shadows and textures play across the surfaces.

"We used two Barco XLM HD30 projectors to project the images onto the façade of the cathedral, one for the upper half and one for the lower part," explains Mikki Kunttu. "The performance consisted of three parts: The first was built around an old photo of the cathedral, the second dealt with abstract shapes and the third started with water theme and transformed the building into an 'ice castle'. The biggest challenge of this project was to match this full HD content with the architectural details of the cathedral and this over a 150m projection distance. The XLM HD30s were perfect for this kind of installation; they had the power and brightness we were looking for. The result was mind-blowing."

(Jim Evans)

(29 January 2010)