Facemapping, real-time visuals and corporal interaction in an outstanding show
Facemapping is about a kind of mapping that consists in projecting digital painting over people’s faces becoming the performance canvas.
Some examples of facemapping
Le Mappillage (mix of french Maquillage with Mapping) is the evolution of traditional facemapping by adding new features:
- Apart from the main projector used for create illustrations on people’s faces, a second one is used in order to represent the already drawn face over another surface. Such mirror-mode surface is placed in front of the person, giving it the possibility to witness how the artistic process is being developed.
- The output triggered over the face is captured through a video camera located in front of the person. Such image is afterwards forwarded to the laptop where real-time visualizations come up over the face, evolutioning throughout the performance thanks to a Vj. All this content is projected over the layout that is in front of the person.
- Prior to start painting the person’s face, it has the chance to interact with some scenes triggered by the vj. That way, the performer will enjoy some time of freedom to express itself before being asked to remain quite to start creating an appropriate facemapping.
People with some digital makeup on their faces and some visuals sourrounding
Therefore, the necessary equipment to carry out such performance consists in:
- An illustrator to paint over faces
- A Graphic designer and Vj for designing and projecting real-time visuals. This profile may be splitted: on one hand, the visual content designer, and on the other hand, the vj that will project the content the day of the event.
People interacting with the camera. In front of them the main projection
The interactive scenes aim to chill the performance, offering the audience an extra interaction while the illustrator was getting ready. These scenes are used both to offer the public a visual entertainment, and to provide the illustrator with some extra time.
Visual content was designed taking into account the light and images coming from the video camera. Depending on the light quality, visuals were adopting themselves accordingly, which means that colours and textures were amended in real-time.
Another scene of the interactive installation. In this case the person is playing with hands
I was in charge of designing the visual content, both for the facemapping itself, as for the interactive scenes, using Notch VFX software. Illustrations were carried out by María Fernanda Martínez, an artist from Bogotá, Colombia, and resident in Barcelona.
This project came to light in Festes de la Merce 2019, Barcelona. It took place in Parc de la Ciutadella and was open to all publics without any age restriction. In the next video you can watch some of the event.
