XL Video Supply Projection For Trafalgar Square Festival Art Installation

XL Video supplied projection for public artist Martin Firrell’s 'I Want To Live In A City...' installation work, beamed along the wall of the steps leading up to the National Gallery as part of the Trafalgar Square Festival 2006.
It’s the first time a contemporary public art work has been projected onto the building.
The project was produced by Firma Arts & Media, under the technical direction of Kamal Ackerie, who work across a board spectrum of new and mixed media, art and music installations.
Ackerie has used XL Video for several of their previous projection and video projects. He has recently worked with Firrell on a projected installation work at Tate Britain which was a resounding success, and through which Firrell also realised the power and versatility of the medium of projection.
The account was handled by XL director Des Fallon, assisted by Jo Beirne. They supplied two Barco R18 ELM Director machines, doubled up, using DVI signals from a Macintosh G5 server for the show, giving a pixel resolution of 1280 x 19024.
The projectors were located 16 metres away from the wall on a special platform, and the final image was 20 ft wide.
To morph between sentences Firrell used a series of animated red dots, which matched the banners hanging outside the gallery.
The installation ran from 10pm to midnight over two evenings and was a huge critical success. Firrell is already planning his next projection work which its to do with heroes.
(DS/SP)