The Metamorphosis of Place: Projection-Mapped Animation

Fairy tale tourism: the architectural projection mapping of magically real and irreal festival lightscapes

“…During the show, a unicorn and mushrooms sprout, a crow makes princesses vanish, gingerbread men wave, and a giant silhouette of a woodcutter with an outsized scythe slices through a Sleeping Beauty forest in a form of "Disney reality" (Fjellman, 1992, p.60). As Lovell, (2018) and Torre (2015) have observed, the renowned light show at Santiago de Compostela similarly draws on mythology, featuring dragons and forests reclaiming the building in a postanthropocentric world. In addition to magical content, the effects may bend reality in a Harry Potteresque twist, for example in their work Aquarium, at London Lumiere (originally shown at Durham Lumiere in 2014).…”

“…In recent years, light festivals, such as the Fête des Lumières in Lyon and Lumiere in Durham have become established events, attracting large audiences. Literature about light festivals has similarly expanded to assess their form (Edensor and Sumartojo, 2017;Lovell and Bull, 2017;Lovell, 2018;Torre, 2015) their hyperreality as simulacra (Lovell, 2018) and their consumption and atmosphere (Edensor, 2010;Edensor and Millington, 2014). This paper makes an original contribution to existing research by considering the undervalued contribution of Paul Robert-Houdin, the originator of the son et lumière, to the development of architectural projection mapping.…”