Cycle III – Bar: Mapped by Alec Reynolds
Posted: May 2, 2022 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »The Experience
Cycle III was the final presentation stage of the project. Bar: Mapped is a demonstrative example of an elevated nightclub bar experience that would be regarded as a special attraction at venue. The purpose of this project was to demonstrate a pragmatic and engaging use case of projection mapping. Below I will walk you through the intention behind the Isadora side of the experience:
- A user will order a drink off of the themed menu. The drink will be prepared and then the bartender will press the drinks button on the iPad kiosk which will trigger the desired scene in the bar area.
- The iPad communication works through a TouchOSC communication protocol over a network that both the client running Isadora and the iPad are on.
- When the Isadora patch receives the input from the iPad, a trigger is sent from the TouchOSC actor to a jump scene actor. There are six total scenes in the patch representing the Main bar scene and then one scene for each of the six themed cocktails.
- Once on the desired scene there are four main pieces of media that are playing:
- A large video is mapped to the screen
- A smaller video is mapped to the box that the bottles rests on
- The smallest video is mapped to four out of five of the liquor bottles. The fifth bottle is a mapped image of itself. The design intent behind this was to highlight the main ingredient in their specific cocktail
- A sound effect that compliments the theme is played
- After the large video reaches the end of its loop, the movie player actor triggers a scene jump back to the Main bar scene and a new drink can be ordered.
Lessons Learned
Isadora is an extremely sensitive and temperamental software. For my Cycle III performance, I unfortunately was not able to present my work in the fashion that I intended to. Due to what I believe was a performance issue with the high variability in resolution and codec, Isadora would reliably crash each time that I tried opening a stage into full screen mode, or mapped any bottle. In order to salvage a performance, I was able to loosely map the Main bar scene bottles and fit my small stage to full screen. TouchOSC still worked and demonstrated the triggering well, but nothing was mapped.
Beyond complications with Isadora, I was able to have a fundamental appreciation for how much skill Projection Mapping takes. Being able to manipulate the projector angled lighting onto a physical asset is nothing short of an artistic craft. Just scratching the surface of complexity with small curve bottles, I now have a deeper appreciation for some of the large scale projections, the likes of which you see at Disney and Large Municipality Events.
If I Had To Do It Again
If I were to do this project again there are a few steps I would take to ensure that the performance was more successful. The primary change is that I would ensure that all my media and content was formatted the same so that Isadora could process it without crashing. Next, I would try to make the experience understood better that Bar: Mapped is in its own room / section of the nightclub and that the music that is heard is bleed over from the main dance floor. In tech rehearsal the music was prepared such that it was at a quieter volume and was only playing from two speakers in the rear of the performance space from the perspective of Bar: Mapped. During the Cycle III performance, the music was blaring and playing from all channels making it sound like the room itself was the nightclub. The final lesson I have learned is that in an environment like that, the people that want to be there are going to have fun, and the people that got dragged there, well its them that you have to work the hardest on to ensure they have a good time. My hope would be that the extra layer of immersion that the projection mapping provides, would fascinate the unsteady patron and keep them drinking and dancing.
