From Outside In: How Frameless Sparked Gazebo Theatre’s Immersive Ideas
As part of their Black Country Digital Firsts journey, Beth and Denise from Gazebo Theatre headed to Frameless London for a timely go-and-see, exploring how immersive technology and projection mapping can shape inclusive creative experiences. As recipients from the second cohort of the programme, delivered in partnership by Creative Black Country and The Space, their visit forms part of a wider process of digital upskilling and idea development.
Here, Beth shares reflections on the visit and how it has helped evolve their own plans for an immersive project back in Bilston.
Last week, we visited Frameless in London. (If you don’t know what Frameless is, it’s a long running immersive art exhibition that uses projection mapping to create a wonderful space). My colleague, Denise, and I had hoped to be inspired by the different rooms and styles of projection, as we are looking forward to creating our own (albeit smaller) immersive experience at Gazebo Theatre back in Bilston.
Frameless did not disappoint and gave us a whole heap to think and talk about on the train back to Wolverhampton! As creatives, we loved the sheer scale of the rooms and the projections that were achieved and the clever use of looping so you could enter and leave an exhibition at any time.
We particularly enjoyed the last room, inspired by some of the great artists as their work was brought to life with moving images, sound effects and music. This room was particularly restful and inspiring to us as it is closest in style to our own plans. The projected scenes - closer to nature in theme - encompassed storms and fog and also the sounds of seaside towns (birds, horse carriages, etc, as the designers had considered how to use sound effects and music along with the images to transport the viewer to another place and time).
One room features a floor to ceiling moving image of Edvard Munch’s The Scream which was incredibly dramatic!
I think that following our visit to Frameless, our initial idea has evolved and developed as we now hope to use multiple projectors to achieve a similar effect. We want our audience to feel a sense of being almost present within the projection as we wish to project onto multiple walls and surfaces. We want our visitors to enjoy their journey through the four seasons as we use a variety of films and effects to create a calm and inclusive space which, like the title of our project suggests, brings the ‘Outside In, with Nature Reimagined.’
Images courtesy of Beth and Denise from Gazebo.