The best projection mapping can entertain, delight and even inform. Projecting video onto structures to create the impression of a 3D visual has become common at events like music festivals, product launches or shows. But that ubiquity hasn't made it any more impressive when it's done well.
Unlike flat projection, video projection mapping turns any object into a screen. It's often done on the facade of a building since this provides a large, prominent canvas for dramatic results, but we've seen impressive examples in interiors and natural landscapes too. The best projection mapping projection are often site-specific, and they enhance rather than effacing the architecture they're beamed onto, often with breathtaking results.
Read on to discover some of the best projection mapping examples we've seen over the years. For more inspiration for outdoor art, see our roundup of the best street art. Or if you're interested in architecture itself, don't miss our guide to the most inspiring famous buildings.
01. Borderless, Digital Art Museum, Odaiba
Projection mapping isn't only for exteriors. The Japanese art collective TeamLab used projection mapping technologies to craft an immersive magical dream world in the Digital Art Museum in Odaiba, Tokyo. Different concepts and scenes flow together to form one 'borderless' world.
"Artworks move out of the rooms freely, form connections and relationships with people, communicate with other works, influence and sometimes intermingle with each other," explained the exhibition’s description. Hosted in a vast, 10,000 square metre space, the installation was brought to life using 520 computers and 470 projectors.
02. Box
There's more than just projection mapping along going on in this video from Bot & Dolly and GMUNK, and it shows how powerful the technique can be combined with other technologies. As the performer engages with a morphing set, unfathomable shapes, graphics and animations are revealed.
The video eventually shows that it is in fact, a robotic mechanism hidden behind every illusion. The state-of-the-art robotic camera systems 'Iris' and 'Scout' allowed for millimetre precision of the robot arms.
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03. Palacio Barolo, Buenos Aires
To celebrate Argentina's bicentenary, there were huge parties across the country. In Buenos Aires, celebrations saw a massive projection onto one of the capital's most famous buildings, the Palacio Barolo, a landmark office building from the 1929s, whose architect was inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. The projection mapping by Ula Ula Productions saw silhouettes of dancing figures projected onto the building, creating an atmospheric piece.
04. Terraform Table
Projection mapping can be particularly imersive when it's interactive. Tellart’s Terraform Table enabled users to 'play God'. At London's V&A Museum, this projection mapping turned the giant sandpit into a rugged landscape, with mountains, valleys and lakes. Here's the cool bit: thanks to a machine learning algorithm, the Table was able to read the height of the sand and respond to any changes. In short, this means you could dig a hole to form a lake, raise a hill to create a snowy peak, or smooth a river over to expand a forest.
The Table formed part of the V&A's tech-focused The Future Starts Here exhibition (which ran until November 2018), and was created as a response to the question: Should we shape the Earth and other planets for human use?
05. Bloom projection mapping at Edinburgh Festival
Projection mapping on a single canvas can turn heads, but some of the granded projection mapping projects are so elaborate those heads might not know where to turn! For the Edinburgh International Festival's 70th anniversary back in 2017, 59 Productions conceived an opening event that transformed the whole of St Andrew Square into a magical night garden. Buildings burst into life in a floral explosion of colour, texture and sound.
Rather than being a one-off event, Bloom ran for two nights at the start of the festival, from 10pm to midnight on a 20-minute loop, allowing the audience to enjoy the spectacle at their own pace.
06. Seaside by Glowing Atoms
We often think of the best projection mapping examples as being cast onto buildings and urban landscapes, but Glowing Atoms (Dorothee and Friedrich van Schoor) make incredible projection mapping light art inspired by and set in natural landscapes. From glowing lights in enchanting forests to laser projections in immense landscapes, they're work channels their love for nature and often uses a combination of techniques, including light installations, video projections and 2D and 3D animations.
Their experimental Seaside project explores the edge of the ocean with sand flying over the beach, dancing beach grass and shells revealing magical light. It was filmed in the Netherlands with projections on site. The sound and music was by Leo Frick.
07. Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama store takeover
PixelArtworks' has created some spectacular projection mapping examples over the years. This 2023 project saw them take over the Harrods department store in London with Louis Vuitton and the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The result was a head-turning projection of Yayoi Kusama’s signature polka dot world.
08. Battersea Power Station projection mapping
Battersea Power Station invited Drive, a UK-based agency that specialises in projection mapping, to create an awe-inspiring visual experience to raise awareness of the iconic building's redevelopment. This is the result: 360,000 lumens of immersive visuals. The beauty of site-specific pieces like this is when they explore themes related to the venue itself, in this case celebrating the building's past, present and future.
09. Tokyo Station Vision
And here's another great example. JR East celebrated the opening of the reconditioned Tokyo Station with a spectacular projection mapping experiment by NHK Enterprise.
The projection includes the silhouettes of commuters at the bustling station before brickwork later appears to peel away to reveal pistons; clockwork automata strum pilasters while trumpets and cymbals blow and crash from behind bays. At one point a route-map inscribes itself across the facade like a 150m long game of Snake. This is a great projection that's sympathetic not only to the architecture of the building, but its function too.
10. Dr Blighty at Brighton Pavilion
Dr Blighty was a free production that became one of the highlights of the 2016 Brighton Festival, transforming the Brighton Pavilion, on England's south coast, into an Indian scene. Produced by Nutkhut and animated by motion design and projection mapping specialist NOVAK, it celebrated Brighton Pavilion's history as a WWI hospital for wounded Indian soldiers. A specially commissioned soundtrack rounded off the colourful event.
11. Speed of Light
Not all projection mapping examples are massive displays measured in metres. Sharp and Jenkins' Speed of Light film bills itself as the worlds smallest all action police chase. Using hand-held micro projectors with an iPhone video source, Tom Jenkins and Simon Sharp create a dynamic and witty chase that plays out across the surfaces of their own office. It proves that size isn't everything.
12. LA Reflections 2024 New Year projection mapping
Going back to bigger canvases, LA's City Hall must have been a delight to work on. Light Harvest worked with A3Visual, Spectre Lab and Dirty Monitor to stage a spectacular seven-minute projection on the tower for LA Ball Drop countdown event for New Year 2024. The piece aimed to celebrate the the cultural diversity of Los Angeles and its famous neighborhoods.
13. Sweater
Using two walls, a treadmill, and some nifty projection, director Filip Sterckx creates a virtual world for the musician Willow's music video. As with most projection mapping projects, it's the technique that charms here.
Singer Pieter-Jan Van Den Troost gropes at doors that aren't really there, trots on the spot down imaginary stairs, and kneels pretending to be paddling in the sea. It's all surprisingly lo-tech, and all the better for it.
14. Lighting the Sails
Jørn Utzon's inspiration for Sydney Opera House's iconic shell roof is brought to life in this work by Urban Screen. The roofs appear as fabric ship sails, undulating in the wind. The distinctive chevron tiles – a labour of love for Utzon – pulse, fold, and rupture to reveal the rich interiors.
All of Urban Screen's projections are worth watching, particularly Tag und Nacht for its clever interplay between in the interior and exterior, and the seminal 555 Kubik.
15. Scintillation
Xavier Chaissaing's super low budget film demonstrated what an inventive artist can achieve with limited resources. The film was shot with a DSLR and a motion control rig made by the artist himself.
Its innovative mix of stop motion footage and live camera projection is particularly bewitching in the scenes where the projection is viewed through the translucent petals of a flower.
16. Organime at the Video Mapping Festival 2023
We thought this projection mapping demo from the 2023 Video Mapping Festival in France was a very clever concept. Created by Rencontres Audiovisuelles, Organime made use of projection mapping to turn the city hall in Amiens into a canvas for a homage to the art of origami. A frenetic and colourful paper dance unfolds, folding and unfolding over the backdrop of the architecture.
17. Sagrada Familia (Ode à la vie) projection mapping
Gaudi's plans for a polychrome facade on the Sagrada Familia have been realised, albeit only for 15 minutes. Moment Factory combined video projection, gobos, sharp beam lights projecting beams into the sky, and lighting from the interior to create a spectacle it describes as a, "living fresco made of colour, light and sound".
To work with the complex geometry of the cathedral, a 3D scan was used to help map and light a show that works with the host architecture in brilliant symbiosis.
18. Baird Manor, Utah
Looking for inspiration for the spooky season? This video projection experience is quite chilling, with brilliantly-synced up audio and lots of moments to make the audience jump. Digital effects expert Hauntworks uses the house's architecture to highlight ghosts in the windows, a haunted ballroom and super-creepy portraits all over the walls. Just don't watch it on your own.
For more inspiration see our picks of some of the best 3D art. We also have a guide to the best laptops for 3D modelling. For a very different type of stunning visual tech, see our pick of the best deepfakes.
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