MUTEK, in Montreal, Canada is a major destination for the electronic music scene. In the past GarageCUBE has attended MUTEK to host workshops and many of the artists who perform during the festival are often using Modul8 for VJing.
Therefore it was exciting to see an installation that literally put the experience of MUTEK on the street vis a vis an interactive projection installation on a building in the city of Montreal during the festival. We were also thrilled to learn that Modul8 was the tool of choice for delivering the video content of this project.
Through the magic of vimeo I was able to contact the people behind the installation and was therefore able to interview Daniel Iregui:
m8.us: First, tell us who you are and what you do.
Daniel: My name is Daniel Iregui and I am the founder of Iregular, an interactive
content creation studio based in Montreal. We create projects like interactive
installations, live visuals and experiential websites.
m8.us: How did this project come about?
Daniel: Mutek, the electronic music festival in Montreal, commissioned our
collaborators in the project Baillat Cardell & fils to create a project on the facade of a building. BC&F later contacted us, Iregular to make these projections interactive. What we decided to do was to adapt the web experience we did before (mutek.org/play) so that the public on the street could interact with installation. The result is Period.
m8.us:What was the creative process for its development? You had the design
first and this dictated the overall look and feel. What technical
elements came into play that altered the appearance of the graphic design?
Daniel: The father of Period. is Play (mutek.org/play), an experiential website
we did with BC&F for Mutek. We wanted to create an experience where the
audience could get the feeling of what the festival was but on the web.
Once we decided to make a large scale installation with the same concept
the look and feel was already done but we had to adapt it to the size of
the building, the angle we could project on, etc. Also now the project
was multiuser so this added a requirement of creating a way to have many
people interact at the same time. That is where the iPhone app came into
place… and that of course came with its own bag of challenges.
m8.us: What made Modul8 an indispensable part of the tools you used? How well
did it ‘play’ with the other tools used?
Daniel: We use Modul8 almost every time we do this kind of project because it
allows us to embed interactive sources (Flash/Quartz) and mix them with
video. It is also very easy to move assets around, rotate them, scale
them, etc… so mapping the projection on the building becomes very easy.
Photo credit: Adam Thompson
m8.us: Can you share any advice with our community about some of the caveats
involved in producing such a project that you think would be helpful?
Daniel: Yes, go to the location many times. Especially before the installation
of the project because, for example, trees grow. See how people get to
the location and determine how much they will interact with it. The
location is real and you have to work around it, so it is important to
know it very well.
m8.us: What other softwares did you use, and what were the protocols you used
to connect these other technologies to Modul8?
Daniel: For the whole installation we used Modul8. As for the play back of
content and mapping, Flash for the generative content, Max/MSP for the
data management, and web technologies for the iPhone interface. We
communicated with the Flash files inside Modul8 using OSC.
m8.us: What kind of projectors did you use?
Daniel:2x 22K Christies
m8.us: What was the turn around time for the project?
Daniel: 4 weeks.
m8.us: Were their other projects that came about as a result of doing this one?
Daniel: Yes. We took [Period] to Mexico and it was an amazing experience. We are
currently looking for other festivals to present it as well.
For more information about Iregular and their other projects go to see their website at their website: http://thisisiregular.com/.
