Burning Too

media façade (video projections with sound, 55 x 26m /180 x 85 ft)
Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, Hong Kong

Humanity was highly dependent on fire for warmth, safety and food preparation during former eras, but today fire and fire imagery are aesthetic experiences for most people that provide feelings of warmth, romanticism, or fear. ‘Burning Too’ was a 55 x 26 m media façade presented on the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre in Hong Kong during the opening of the ISEA 2016 conference. (International Symposium on Electronic Art. The Creative Media Centre is a unique building, designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, featuring vertical edges that are not perpendicular to the ground and a main façade that is angled forward 62 degrees. For presentation of ‘Burning Too’, the main façade of the Creative Media Centre was covered with a 4K Ultra HD video projection (3840 x 2160 resolution) of slow moving fire, presented through four Full HD video projectors. The colours of the projected fire changed continuously in real-time, while the sound of the fire was interactively controlled by the visual activity of the projection. Software was specifically designed to map the four video projections onto the diverse angles of the Creative Media Centre, and the overall fire imagery appeared to the audience as one unified Ultra HD projection of fire with sound.

All photographs and video from the actual media façade taken on May 17 and 18, 2016

• web page and documentary video: http://www.aesthetic-machinery.com/burning-too.html
• exhibition document: http://www.aesthetic-machinery.com/documents/RitterBurningToo.pdf