THE RESIDENTS
National Gallery Singapore (Supreme Court Wing, facing The Arts House)
The first exhibit that I came across and realised that it was nicely mapped onto the building. It is interesting how the projector is placed slightly off centre and still managed to mapped accordingly to the building. Looking at it from the side does not really affect the visuals much but the street lights was kind of affecting the visual from the front view. I didn’t managed to find the description board, thus I feel that the location of the description board is important for audience to know what they are watching.
THROUGH HER EYES
National Gallery Singapore (Supreme Court Wing)
We arrived in time to watch this exhibit from the beginning and it started off with a black and white visuals along with text. However, the visuals was hardly visible and only the text can be seen clearly. I think it was due to the surrounding lights as there were spotlights coming from opposite the building. The second half of the projection was more vibrant and colourful which is more visible as compared to the first half. Thus, colours do play a part in the visuals that you want to project and also considering all the external problems that might surface.
SECRETS OF THE SAND, WRITTEN IN THE STARS, SNAPSHOTS IN TIME
National Gallery Singapore (City Hall Wing)
This exhibit was directly beside the “Through Her Eyes” exhibit, thus confusing many audience if they were a single or separate piece. The visuals is nicely projected onto the building but due to the surrounding lights, some of the details was lost again. I personally like how they make full use of the building structure to creates the animation where it feels like they are forming the building. I think they face the same problem as last year where there were trees directly in-front of the building. Those trees blocked off some of the pillars where the animation is projected on. However, I think due to the projection on other pillars, it kind of allows the audience to visualize the animation on the affected pillars even if there were trees blocking.
Something different this year was the light structure in-front of the building. I was guessing that it is supposed to help enhance the whole experience with the projection going on. However, I personally don’t feel connected with it because I expected the projection and light structure to work together better.
STRONGHEARTS: THE PEOPLE OF THE SINGAPORE RIVER
The Art House
This exhibit also make full use of the building outline to create the animation and was nicely mapped onto the building. Due to its location, the projector was placed directly opposite and at a nice distance where the visuals was much clearer as compared to other exhibit. Also, the description board was placed in a comfortable position where audience don’t have to walk to far off just to get an idea of the projection.
INTERSECTIONS: THE STORY OF BELONGING
Asian Civilisations Museum
They used vibrant colours which I feel that it helps with the projection on building. Even with surrounding lights, they are able to stand out and make people want to view it. As there was another exhibit from the festival in-front of the projection, it kind of “guide” the audience to where they should stand and watch the projection.
PORTRAITS OF PERFORMERS FROM THE PAST
Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall
The projection was projected on the middle façade and not the whole building façade which I think was due to the full length window on both end which make it difficult to project anything on it. Using only the middle façade, they still make full use of the height of the building and work around with the canvas they have.
Other exhibits from Light to Night Festival
This festival was held concurrently with I Light Singapore which make it difficult for audience to differentiate which exhibit belongs to which festival. I personally also didn’t managed to differentiate thinking that only the projection mapping show was part of Light to Night Festival and not the other installations.
OVERALL REVIEW
Placement of Description Board
The description board was located directly under the building where I find it a hassle to actually walked over to read the description. As projection mapping show is best viewed from a distance, a description board should also be placed nearer to the viewing area as to indicate that the audience are able to view it from there. Especially for the projection show at the National Gallery, the audience is viewing from across the building, in order to read the description, they have to cross the road to find out more about the show which was inconvenient.
Festival Map
The whole festival is spread out across a wide area but the online map provided was not specific enough for people to navigate through the area. We have to walk quite a bit to find out where are the different projection show and some of the work was found randomly because we happened to came across it. For the exhibits at Esplanade Park, we couldn’t find any of the exhibits and almost mistook a Chinese Festival light display as the exhibit.
Reflection
I feel that projection mapping is not just about creating visuals and putting it up on a building, there are so much more to consider when it comes to the final outcome. Taking into consideration the building façade, how the artist going to make use of the building structure to make the visuals more interesting and giving it life. Does the content projected on that specific building have a meaning to it? Also, there will be a lot of external factors that will affects the overall experience like the surrounding lights and the environmental sound.