Large-scale projection

The history of large-scale projection (which belongs to the iron age of video mapping) begins when the PANI [high-power slide projector] — used for theatre sets and decoration since 1955 — beings to be used outside and especially on the façades of buildings, for festivals, shows and concerts. In France, this initial move, consisting in moving the PANI projector outside the theatre to project large images in the open air, is achieved during the mid-70s by a couple of aficionados, Max and Catherine, founders of the company HOLD UP. The outdoor audiovisual concerts given by Jean-Michel Jarre are in keeping with this event since Jarre had called on Max for the first of them, Paris Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, performed on Place de la Concorde in 1979. Subsequently, Jean-Michel Jarre works with the scenographer Marie-Jeanne Gauthé for all his shows, especially in Houston and then Lyon in 1986, and in Paris-La Défense in 1991.

During the 80s and 90s, an entire large-scale projection sector takes shape, with the founding of companies specialising in providing technical services for this type of event (ETC in 1981 and VLS in 1983). The world of large-scale projection will also benefit from the institutionalisation and popular success of festivals such as the Festival of Lights in Lyon, which began in 1989. Creative studios pop up: Spectaculaires — Allumeurs d’image (created by Benoît Quero in 1987), Light Motif (founded in 1987 by Marie-Jeanne Gauthé) and Skertzò (created by Jean-Michel Quesne and Hélène Richard in 1988). All these creators have since adopted mapping technology. They have influenced, and continue to influence the history of the medium, drawing on their experience with large-scale projection. Nathanaëlle Picot, who began working in 1994 as a graphic designer with La Grande Image, founded the company P i xel n’Pepper in 2013, with Gaël Picquet (today, Pixel n’Pepper is particularly active in the field of monumental mapping).

Until the very end of the 1990s, these large-scale projections were not videos but large-format slides, in other words fixed images, painted or printed on transparent mediums. However, they could be animated on façades if manipulated in front of the projectors: by sliding, rotating and overlapping these slides, the performers created the effect of movement. In summary, notwithstanding the power of the projectors used, large-scale projection at that time depended on an age-old technological paradigm: that of the magic lantern with its plates which the creators of phantasmagoria spectacles in the 17th and 18th centuries would animate mechanically. 1989 marks a key turning point in the history of large-scale projection; to mark the bicentenary of the French Revolution and the events organised in celebration, the company ETC uses the PIGI system for the first time (a projector of large-scale images, associated with software enabling the management and programming of these movement effects).

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