New Projection Mapping Festival Lighting Up Hong Kong Facades

November 23, 2017 by Dave Haynes

The light and laser show on the skycrapers lining Hong Kong’s spectacular waterfront have a bit of visual competition right now – a video projection mapping event called the Lumieres Hong Kong festival.

Running Nov. 23-25 (so it is on right now in Hong Kong, where it is evening), the festival features three nights of light installations and video projections on landmark sites and buildings of the city in Sheung Wan, Soho, Central, Tsim Sha Tsui and Kowloon.

It’s free (not sure how you could control paid admission for that anyway) and is being run on the technical side by Christie and a local partner, Avollusion.

“We’re very proud to be a part of Lumieres Hong Kong and have been working on the technical design since the conceptual stage of the festival. Due to the scarcity of space, we have had to come up with unique solutions to counter the challenges of executing projection mapping projects in Hong Kong,” says Justin Choy, Managing Director, Avollusion. “Through this event, we hope to show that building mapping is indeed possible in Hong Kong and hopefully we can inspire others to come up with new, creative and innovative ideas that help bring the cityscape to life. In the live events world, there is still so much more technology that we want to show the people of Hong Kong, and hopefully this is the first step to making that happen.”

“Lumieres Hong Kong is our first major collaboration since we’ve established our new Hong Kong office and we’re very excited about this project,” adds my buddy Denys Lavigne, Vice President, Global Christie 360. “Exploring new innovative and meaningful ways to integrate digital media experiences in urban environments continues to be a priority for our team. In addition to the collection of large-scale experiences that will be illuminating the city, we are particularly proud of the interactive light painting station we’ve created as it will allow visitors to express themselves and create digital art that they can share on their social media platforms. We are confident that the result of this great collaboration between the Lumieres team, our partner Avollusion and Christie will offer the people of Hong Kong and festival visitors a truly magical experience.”

Among the highlights:  projection mapping on the façade of the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, the ultra lux hotel on Connaught Road in the Central district. The projection canvas, measuring 34 meters in width and 33 meters in height, uses 10 blended Christie Boxer 4K30 projectors, and runs off Christie Pandoras Box servers. Lavigne’s team did the creative.

There are other jobs around the city, such as Inuit-inspired animations on the white façade of the General Post Office and a time-traveling piece on the façade of City Hall.

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