STARK - architectural image projectors

THE BEAUTIFUL MARCHE

November 25th 2006

THE MARCHE IN BRUSSELS -
THREE DIMENSIONAL EMOTION

In 2006, the Marche Region celebrated its annual festivities using spectacularity and imagery.
The idea is to bring the fascination of the art, the architecture and the landscape of the Marche to the Grand Place in Brussels - to "spectacularise" the beauty of the region with one of the largest architectural Multivision shows ever realised in Europe or the world.
And so, this artistic installation fulfilled its promise to be a big event: designed and created for the Marche Region by Multivision Designer Paolo Buroni, one of the best known and most innovative contemporary visual experimenters who, with his large-scale multimedia installations, blends images with music and architecture, creating a unique language (we might add, here, that Buroni is a "marchigiano DOC").

Buroni has been defined as an “urban invader” by the American critics because of the direction his artistic path as taken towards a total image that engulfs streets and squares in all of the three spatial dimensions. He has worked with many artists, including sculptors Pier Paolo Calzolari and Arnaldo Pomodoro, musicians Uri Caine and Archie Sheep and actor Marco Paolini. With his evocative multivision events he has peacefully invaded the Venice Biennale Film Festival, the Sanremo Festival and Broadway, the Marmore waterfall, the Coex Center in Seoul, the Montecarlo F1 Gran Prix, the San Siro Stadium in Milan, skyscrapers in Singapore and Las Vegas, the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul for the opening ceremony of Universiadi, the Pirelli Building and, most recently, the Palavela in Turin for the Olympic Games.

The Grand Place
Imagine the magnificent Hotel de Ville (1800 square meters), the other historic buildings and even the pavement of the Grand Place (over 6000 square meters) entirely frescoed by Raphael, Crivelli or covered with the natural green landscapes of the Marche.
The people of Brussels, the passers-by, the audience will found themselves immersed in a magnificent world of images and music that slowly evolves, an imaginary and surrealistic world created using the very real treasures of the Marche.
The Grand Place of Brussels – with its absolutely unique architecture and exceptional theatricality skifully created by the ancient masters – provides the perfect “canvas” for the creation of this magical world.

This is how Paolo Buroni described his experience at the time: “In my mission as an artist, and also in this specific event, my intention is to create the sense of a multi-sensorial immersion in the spectator using images. The images are processed and spectacularised through the creation of an artistic, technological space in which a succession of scenes interacts with a quadraphonic soundtrack, surrounding the spectator and creating a unique, unrepeatable atmosphere.
My challenge is to relate the emotional impact of the subject rather than giving a real, didactic account of the subject. To create, for one day only, a parallel universe, a place of wonder and marvel, to explore and experience emotion at 360 degrees". Paolo Buroni

The numbers of the installation:
- Director & Multivision designer – Paolo Buroni
- Graphics: Sabine Lindner
- Images: 1200
- Projection system – 35 special Stark projectors
- Power absorbed, approx. 100 KW
- Direction system Mac - Trax

The records of the Grand Place event

Use of innovative projection technology (produced in the Marche, patented and world leader)
As is frequently the case, the need creates the technology.
In this case Paolo Buroni’s personal artistic mission, based on highly personalised Maxi projections in Multivision, needed particular technologies which were not yet available on the market. This led to the creation and development of new innovative technology. The result was the birth, in a few short years, of a small industry Marche (Stark) that produces special Projectors and exports this technology to all of the world.
Today, Stark Projectors are installed and used all over the world whenever large size images of excellent quality and luminosity need to be projected.
From the Cinema Museum in the Turin Subway, from Gardaland to Jaipur, India, from the San Siro stadium to a stadium in Istanbul, from Dubai to Broadway and even Las Vegas.

- Over 10,000 square meters of images

More than a record, this Architectural Multiprojection event in the Grand Place with over 10,000 square meters of images was an enormous technological and technical challenge.
In fact, this is one of the largest Multiprojections in Multivision ever done.
Following are Buroni’s considerations at the time: “Because of the restrictions imposed by the Grand Place and because such a valuable and delicate monument deserves maximum respect, during the planning phases I tried to find solutions that do not obstruct the view of this historical square with unattractive technological equipment, cables, etc.
Moreover, I was faced with a sole possibility, that of positioning the projectors at more than 65 meters from the buildings.
To reach the required projection power, I had to resort to a very complex technical solution and to the special Stark projection technology.
During the live on-site tests I realised that we would never have succeed in this endeavour using normal standard lenses, so Stark agreed to custom produce special lenses, making it possible to project from this distance in the right proportions."
This entire projection system is directed by a special computerised management program that synchronises all of the images (in thousands of combinations) with each other and with the sound track.

MILAN CATHEDRAL



On Christmas eve and Christmas night gigantic images were projected in multivision onto the façade of the Cathedral, on part of the Gallery and on the Royal Palace.

MIRACLE OF THE SNOW AT S. MARIA MAGGIORE

Rome, August 5th 2003-2004

Rievocazione storica del miracolo della Madonna della neve del 5.8.358 d.C.

This year, Paolo Buroni and the Stark projectors have once again created the “Miracle of the Snow” by flooding the façade of the historic S. Maria Maggiore Basilica, in Rome, with images; the event was dedicated to His Holiness Pope John Paul II. On this date the miracle of August 5, 358 AC, very important for Romans and non Romans alike, is commemorated. The square and the streets surrounding the Basilica were filled with thousands of people to commemorate this event.

TEATRO DELLA FORTUNA



On the occasion of Luciano Pavarotti’s first theatrical direction of la Bohème, the Fano Teatro della Fortuna was completely “frescoed” with images.

DON QUIXOTE
ALCALÀ DE HENARES 2005


Celebration of the 400th anniversary of the printing of the first edition of “The Story of Don Quixote de La Mancha”, by Miguel Cervantes. Seven cities of five continents hosted the most important celebrations dedicated to the book by the great Spanish author: Alcalà de Henares, where Cervantes was born on September 29 1547, Dallas, Mexico city, Paris, Brussels, Oran and Saint Petersburg. In Alcalà, a few kilometres from Madrid, 25 Stark projectors continued to project images onto the central square and church for one year.