The Macula Spectacula: The Liver Building
I never really got ‘into’ history when I was in school. I liked the imagery of the Battle of Hastings and the Bayeux Tapestry but when it got to in-depth looks at the development of pig iron during the industrial revolution there was very little for my attention deficit mind to be inspired by. If like me you had a very uncharismatic teacher then you knew the best lessons were the ones where he/she wheeled in that huge bulky TV on the trolley and we sat and watched an episode of time team. For a long time teaching methods has been a topic of much debate. It’s been proven that if you make an activity fun you will remember it more. But how entertaining can you possibly make a history lesson? Short of battle re-enactments where someone could ‘lose an eye’ (King Harold reference there) I couldn’t see the potential to make history as awe inspiring as the day they were first written. That was until I saw the work of The Macula.
July 2011 saw the 100 year anniversary of the famous Liverpool landmark, the Liver Building. It’s iconic roof being the home to the two winged guardians of the city, The Liverbirds. Most city run celebrations consists of branded balloons and overpriced and watered down beer tents but as a testament to Liverpool’s re-enforced attitude towards innovation and creative pride this was the main event to mark the centenary.
Although their major projects only really started in 2009 and their team was founded by only three artists (Dan Gregor Amar Mulabegovič and Ian Síma) Macula’s series of projected animations have quickly started appearing in various parts of the world at historical anniversaries and city wide festivals. Their intricate little details all calculated to the dimensions and contours of their complex canvas gives a surreal and magical effect and as incredible as these videos look on your screen, nothing can compare to how amazing they look up close and personal making them an unforgettable experience. Skwigly was fortunate to be able to interview Macula just after their Liverpool gig.
How did you get into this kind of public art? Did you plan to do these projects or did they just happen?
There is a long story behind this, but to make it simple all of the 3 founders/members of the macula came from the artistic background (painting, photography) so there was a natural evolution into something more contemporary such as visual installations, that afterwards blended in to video-mapping. First of the mappings were punk, but it evolved to where we are now. At that time we did not plan or expect such a big projects to happen. I guess it was a bit of luck and a bit of talent, that made this happen.
How much of a challenge is it to research the content of the video. Just looking at the Liverpool projection there was a lot of things you could have done?
It’s always very challenging because we are trying to fit the content as much as we can to the structure of particular architecture. So from that point we can have a lot of material from which we can choose but not all those things are suitable for our mapping content on the building.
What process do you go through to work out what goes in and what doesn’t?
There is a lot of selection aspects involved in process and each project have it’s own obstacles. We try to have a wide range of visuals in each storytelling installation and at the same time to better ourselves in every way. By doing this huge efforts, we are able to bring our viewers possibility to be visually entertained in completely new and fresh way in public.
When were you first approached to do the liver building animation and how long did it take to produce?
We were approached for the first time by the Liverpool City Council in November 2010, so all the planning to the execution took over 8 months. The animation itself took over 2 and a half months.
There are so many little details. All the people at the top pulling ropes etc. How many people work on the project to get everything together?
Well if we are not counting the characters at the top, altogether there was 12 people working on this project.
Can you tell us what equipment and software you use for your projections?
This also depends very on the specifics of the project. For this event we were using 2x35K ANSI Christie projectors for the Liver building and 1x35K and 2x18K ANSI Christie for the Museum of Liverpool. There is a whole variety of programs used from the After effects, over a variety of typical 3D programs.
How far are you from the building face to get it looking that good?
In this case about 100 meters, but it is not a general prerequisite.
If you could receive a commission to project on any building, what would it be on… and could you give us a clue what you would do on it?
Any building by Le Corbusier or Tadao Ando. We would play with its architecture.
Can you tell us where you will be playing your projection animations next?
At the moment we are planning a repetition of our 600 year clock tower mapping in Prague and negotiating our future projects.
Looking at your website we can see there is a lot more to you than just the projections. Do you have anything else planned?
For now we will stick to mapping, but in meantime we are trying to develop some new approaches to visual culture of interactive projections and video installations.
With live shows there is always a fear of something going wrong. What are the chances of something failing, or being misaligned? Has anything ever happened?
There is always a chance that something can go unplanned, that something may go wrong, that is why everything is perfectly planned and we work as a team with our projection equipment supplier to make everything click. But even if everything planned to perfect detail you always get something unexpected: when we were in Dubai working on aligning 4x18K projectors everything was nearly in place, after a 2 day work. At the very last moment, at about 4AM some contractor guy at the very other end of the building unplugged our power supply cable, just to screw something in, and cut our power. At that moment one of the projectors “crashed” and our 2 day work was lost in vain. Nevertheless we made it work in the end.
— End of interview —
I felt that in hiring The Macula to be the centre piece of the Liver Building’s anniversary, Liverpool has set a new standard for itself but also raised the bar for all surrounding cities. I look forward to seeing the competition for the next big outdoor exhibition but for now I’ll dream of a world where every building will eventually have it’s own history projected onto them, or at the very least an episode of Time Team.