Dreams Come True: The First Experience with my Lovechild, Limelight Academy

The process behind building the brightest, most powerful projector system even seen in the United States.

Every now and then, we have the opportunity to create an artwork purely out of our love and passion for art. This year, the Video Mapping Festival in Lille was one of these projects. France is the birthplace of projection mapping, and our artwork was sort of an ode to these French roots.

Our very first venture into the world of fashion was one for the books. We felt extremely proud and grateful when rag&bone reached out and asked us to create an audio-visual artwork for their Fall/Winter 2020 runway show at New York Fashion Week, which is truly an iconic event that represents some of the best innovation when it comes to creativity. In addition to setting fashion trends, the shows themselves establish new levels of creativity.

Art is our bread and butter. It only took a couple of days to lose all but one of our contracts for the next 6-8 months, which is not only heartbreaking, but it almost shattered our business. Humanity is experiencing a devastating time, but together we’ll get through this.

Working for an established brand and having complete artistic freedom is quite rare in our line of work. Working for a brand with values that we can identify ourselves with, well, that’s the cherry on top!

What a year 2019 has been! We’ve had a really busy end of last year, and 2020 started with a bang, so here’s my belated reflection on the fantastic opportunities we had in 2019. Let me just say, I’m really honored for all the opportunities and I will forever cherish the memories we’ve made. 

An abandoned factory, an unused art space – the Dome has long moved the fantasy of our friends at Factory Light Festival. For the first time ever, the owner granted them access to use the space for the duration of the light festival, and Craig, one of the organizers asked Limelight Art Director, Csaba Világosi to create a unique audio-visual experience within the Dome.

As artists, we’ve been invited to various light festivals around the world. No two light festivals are the same, but overall, we do see a pattern – they are organized and promoted by the city they take place at. After long years of attending these festivals, it’s inevitable that you begin to appreciate not only the artworks but the festival as a whole. The curatorial concept, the execution, the environment you are in and the people you are together with.

The oldest life forms on Earth have existed for several millions of years, and for different reasons, some species go extinct from time to time. Humans are hindered in survival by the lack of a cosmic perspective, the desire to destroy and to love and being loved exist in them together. Slowly floating tardigrades that live through extreme circumstances remind us that in order to survive, we must live in harmony with nature.

Last but not least in our series of introducing the Masterclass Vol. 2 artists, get to know Jakub. He is a digital artist based in Slovakia, who came across projection mapping during his university studies and had the chance to work on some projects in Prague.

Willem, a motion designer and video artist living in Ghent, Belgium is next in our series of posts introducing the Masterclass Vol. 2 participants. "I spent a big part of my childhood drawing, a dull moment was an opportunity for me to dive into my own world. I expanded my toolkit with digital software and got into graphic design," says Willem. While studying graphic art, he started appreciating film and cinema. "This made me fall in love with the moving picture," he adds.

Tim Jockel is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary designer and visual artist. His background in traditional graphic design and his fascination with typography, abstract forms, and generative systems affect his approach to motion design and visual art. "My artworks deal with the unseen relationship of shapes, structures, and the process of transformation. It is also driven by the question of how sound influences movement, and vice versa," says Tim.

Minjeong Lee is a visual artist from South Korea who came across Limelight Academy whilst browsing projection mapping artworks on Vimeo. “I was amazed by the quality of work, especially seeing “Awakening” by Alex Riczkó (Masterclass Vol. 1 artist and now Limelight team member) for Factory Light Festival in Norway. I have wanted to work on a personal project for a long time so when the Masterclass program came up, I took the dive.”

Ky Duyen, a young Vietnam-based artist started out as a video maker when she went to college with the intention to study film. “My interest slowly shifted to making small scale installations using projection mapping technique once I realized that I didn’t have to restrict my work to a rectangle screen,” says Ky Duyen. She has been following Limelight for a while, but she missed the deadline of the first Masterclass. “When I read about the second one, I applied in a heartbeat.”

We receive so many questions about our Projection Mapping Masterclass and to whom it was designed for, and what better way to explain it than through the journeys of our Masterclass artists. Meet Alice, an illustrator turned 3D animator from Australia!

We are just over our second Limelight Academy Projection Mapping Masterclass, and our hearts are full of gratitude. We had an amazing time with our second group of applicants from different parts of the world. Read Limelight Co-Founder István’s thoughts about the program.

What is this program about? Who is it designed for? What are the requirements and why should you apply? You asked, we answered.

What were the best moments? Any hurdles? How did this workshop differ from the one in Norway? Read the thoughts of Limelight Co-Founder István on our Sydney workshop.

Oh wow, we achieved a lot in 2018! Let’s see!

In the fourth and final part of our series introducing the Masterclass Vol. 1 applicants, we bring you the story of Alex, who had no experience in projection mapping before applying to the program, yet he is part of the Limelight team now.

Here we go again, this is part three of our series introducing the Masterclass Vol. 1 applicants. Meet Casber, Creative Director and Founder of a multimedia solution studio based in Macau.

Part two of our series introducing the Masterclass Vol. 1 applicants is here. Meet Kasia, a Polish architect by trade who has been working as a VJ creating generative visuals for clubs, festivals and gigs.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, international media including The Economist and Business Insider covered Limelight Co-Founder Viktor Vicsek’s spectacular installation, Talking Heads, which is now part of the Light Art Collection of Amsterdam Light Festival. And to top that, a photo of Talking Heads is now also available in the Getty Images library. What is fame if not this?

As Masterclass Vol. 2 is well under its way, we look back at Limelight Academy’s first program and introduce you to the talented applicants, who will tell you about their views on Limelight Academy and the highs and lows of Masterclass Vol 1. We start the series off by introducing Soma, a Hungarian motion graphic designer.

Limelight Projection Mapping and Gabriel Schama Studios are proud to announce Cathedral of Thieves, a collaboration of intricate wood art and stunning video mapping. Recently premiered in Los Angeles, this limited edition art installation is available for exhibition at festivals, art museums and galleries.

It’s the second time already, and it still moves me. I was so overwhelmed with gratefulness and happiness looking at my screen, seeing the 72 applications from 26 countries, and the enthusiasm you all shared. 

Limelight Academy that was born of our Co-Founder, István’s sudden idea, grew into a worldwide, one-of-a-kind program within weeks that he’s now very proud of, and, in his words, “it’s like it’s been with us forever.”

Factory Light Festival is just around the corner, and we can’t wait to see our Limelight Academy Projection Mapping Masterclass applicants showing their artworks to a crowd of locals and art fans from around the world on the amazing concrete silos of the beautiful city of Slemmestad. 

In current usage, the above phrase is usually meant sarcastically. Calling someone a “jack of all trades” implies that they aren’t very skillful in any of the areas in which they claim expertise, their knowledge or skills are superficial rather than comprehensive. However, the phrase was formerly intended as a compliment, meaning that a person is a generalist rather than a specialist, versatile and adept at many things. That’s how I see Viktor.

O.Z.O.R.A. Festival takes place in a beautiful valley surrounded by forests and corn fields in an agricultural area in Dádpuszta, Hungary.

I had doubts about the number of applications when we launched the program and only had about 10 days before the deadline – due to many other projects we could only fit it to our timeline that way. Artist calls usually appear months before the deadline to allow enough time for spreading the word, and even like that, I often see deadlines extended due to the lack of applicants. We just didn’t have the chance to do it that way – when the idea came it was already late and we just didn’t want to miss the chance to start this exceptional program.

There is a growing number of mapping contests all around the world with different structures and money prize pools. What is common in almost all of them is that they only pay artists for their work in case they win the contest. There’s no professional help or specific education for projection mapping that is for experienced animators entering the contests who have no or limited knowledge and experience in projection mapping, especially outdoors and in large scale.

Greece has had a special place in my heart since I spent some years there in my early twenties, learned the language, and still have many friends around.

Ever since it first exploded into the consciousness of artists and advertisers in the 1990s, projection mapping has become an independent art form with artists of different styles and the most exciting pieces that have ever been created.

The A’ Design Award and Competition is the biggest competition for designers and creatives. No category for us? No problem. Limelight Projection Mapping won the Silver A’ Design Award in the category of Lightning Products and Lightning Projects Design as the only projection mapping project, competing with lightning design works. 

“Absolutely mind blowing!” "I can’t breathe, this is amazing.” “Just… what an amazing visual performance!”

As a beginner in video mapping, you’ll ask this question often and might go a long way to get to the answer. You can create the best 3D animation ever and it might not look the way you saw it on your screen at all. Then the next day, you go and give it a try on another surface with a different projector and with some animation content that's really simple - and it works much better.

We’re just amazed by reading a blog post from Paul Roberts on the Creative Bloq about the 14 best mapping demos that will blow your mind! Guess who’s first? Hell yeah, it’s our Interconnection piece created for iMapp!

We’re honored that our 3D projection mapping artwork Interconnection was featured on CNN Indonesia!