Everything is il-LUMA-nated

One year ago on September’s First Friday, folks spilled out of art galleries and restaurants into the dusk-drawn streets for what turned out to be one of the biggest art festivals Binghamton has ever seen. Around 25,000 people gathered to watch as buildings were rearranged and reshaped, their facades crumbling as cyberkinetic faces exploded from bricks and giant lizards crawled across windows. Our favorite childhood comic strip sprang to life, and Binghamton was showered in a glow of creative light.

This year, we once again will be enveloped in that glow as the sun sets on First Friday, and the second annual LUMA Projection Arts Festival takes over the downtown streets. The festival will include four different buildings with five different projections, played multiple times throughout the evening. Co-founders of the festival Joshua Ludzki, director of Bingpop; and Nick Rubenstein, curator of Jungle Science, set out to expand and develop the size and scope of this year’s festival. They’ve teamed up with the international projection company Christie Digital to ensure that this year’s show will be bigger, better, and brighter.

“One of the things that’s been really interesting about working with Christie,” says Ludzki, “is how interested they are in what we’re doing. We - so far as we know - are the only festival in the country that’s focused exclusively on the projection arts. Their interest in us is, I think, because of that. We’ve been able to learn a lot by dealing closely with them.”

Bringing a projection arts festival to Binghamton was by no means an easy feat. The idea was germinated by Tice Lerner. BingPop had thrown a New Year's Eve after-party at Social on State, where they projected local artists’ work onto the front of the building. “I approached Joshua and said, ‘Have you ever heard of projection mapping?’ which led to the question ‘What is projection mapping?’” Lerner then proceeded to explain the difference between projection mapping, and just projecting on a building.

“Projection mapping is generating an image or animation that is mapped specifically to a surface; not just the shape, but all of the topology. It’s building an animation that utilizes every feature: the texture, anything that exists on the surface. Once that animation is generated, you project it back onto the surface, using special software that makes sure it fits back on the surface just as is. Once the projector is turned on, anything that was utilized on that surface will seem like it’s moving or coming to life.”

Projection mapping is like building on building. The artists involved in the festival must become a “second generation architect,” Lerner says. He explains it further in terms of his own work in practical effects.

“You can go buy a rubber mask or generic prosthetics, but nothing will be the same as taking a live cast of someone’s face, sculpting something specifically to them, and having something that was made only for that one face. It’ll never move the same. The lifelike feeling is there because that piece was created to accentuate and take advantage of that person’s face, not some generic idea.”

Lerner continues, “It’s the same as a building. You have to look at the building and say ‘What does that building want to be, and what do we create to make this building look alive or different in some way, but still be identifiable to that building?’ It’s very important in finding a balance; just like when you create a monster. What makes it real is not the fake part, but the part that is true to the anatomy of what we already know.”

After having the original idea of animating the courthouse, the duo of Lerner and Ludzki decided they wanted to aim bigger, but needed help to do so. Nick Rubenstein, who came to the area after a successful career doing post-production and animation in Hollywood and VJing for artists all across the world, was called in and became a co-founder of the festival. The logistics of pulling off the scale of the festival were intense.

First, they needed to gather a team of artists. Luckily for Binghamton, the creative group Favorite Color, which does animation for ESPN and HBO, had ties to the area. Mason Mastrionni, heir to Hart Studios, was also willing to race ahead with their ambitious plans. With the help of Zach Mulligan, a Binghamton native who now lives in Los Angeles and works for Jim Henson Productions, was pulled on board, and Howie Mitsakos of Vestal’s Novel Studios also agreed to create a piece.

With a stage full of artists, the next two hurdles would be acquiring the high-powered projectors needed for mapping, as well as the stamp of approval from the City of Binghamton, because it was going to be necessary to turn off the lights downtown.

Once again, fortune was on their side, and they were able to find the projectors needed, and the city was fully on board. “Coming from bigger cities - I’ve always lived in bigger cities -” Rubenstein explains, “it’s always been really difficult to get things on a larger scale done. Unless you know everyone already. In Binghamton… you can introduce yourself, and over time develop relationships and trust. In particular, the Office of Economic Development and Bob Murphy, who is a very vocal supporter of the arts, were a big help.”

Last year’s festival, despite a few snags, was a resounding success, and once the projectors were turned off and the street lamps again buzzed, the team started thinking of how to make this year bigger and brighter. One of the ideas was a juried competition. “Last year we had the crowdsourced art gallery,” Ludski recalls. “We had 20 people submit.” In order to more fully engage the public in the projection arts this year, they had artists submit proposals, and five finalists were selected. Judges include Wade Ryer from Dreamworks Studios, and the winning piece will be projected onto the front of The Shop on Washington Street.

The Binghamton Philharmonic also approached the team to see if they could be involved, and one of the new pieces this year was specifically developed for live symphonic accompaniment. The Philharmonic will be unusually seated on the back of the Forum’s stage, facing the open loading dock door, so as to be visible to the crowd watching the projection. Mason Mastrionni and Zach Mulligan were tapped to produce the feature.

“The idea was to choose something iconic that hasn’t [yet] been animated. One of the things that inspired us was the idea of how Fantasia was done,” Ludzki remarks. “Our challenge was to make sure you hear the piece and you say to yourself ‘How is it possible that no one’s done an animation to this piece?’ because it’s so well-known and so iconic. [We wanted] to pay homage to not just Fantasia, but a century of tradition of associated animation to classical music. But also taking it to the next level, because it’s not just animation, it’s projection mapping. It’s something that I think we can safely say has never been done before.”

This animation will feature both the classic B.C. characters, as well as the Wizard of Id. One of the main stressors for the artists is that, for the projection to be a success, the timing needs to be pulled off incredibly precisely. “The Philharmonic is known for figuring out impossible problems and doing it very well,” Mastrionni delivers, with a slight catch in his voice. Due to all of the moving parts, the real first performance will be the night of. For Mason, “it’ll be like watching a tightrope walker go in between two skyscrapers.”

LUMA feels like something of a homecoming to Mastrionni. When his grandfather, Johnny Hart, unexpectedly passed away in 2007, Mason came home from Minneapolis to take the reins at Hart Studios and continue his grandfather’s legacy. Having been raised in the Binghamton area, Mastrionni remembers, “One of my favorite parts of growing up was seeing the B.C. Open, the B.C. Parks signs, and B.C. Transit. It was really cool to see the way my grandfather volunteered to be part of the community.” By bringing the beloved characters into a whole new atmosphere during LUMA, Mastrionni feels like he’s continuing that legacy into the next generation.

Other highlights of this year’s festival will include two projections by Favorite Color: one, on Atomic Tom’s, will contain an homage to retro video games, and the other will be projected onto a Cadillac in front of the same building. “We’re not entirely sure if the car isn’t going to explode when hit by lasers,” Rubenstein jokingly remarks, “but we can only hope the explosion will be contained.” The LUMA team also recommends that, if you find a large crowd at the car projection, to come back later as it is a more intimate piece.

Rubenstein himself has teamed up with Howie Mitsakos and Novel Studios to create a piece that will be broadcast on the back of the downtown radio building, and visible from the Metro Center parking lot. Entitled “Virtual Architecture,” you’ll have to see for yourself what it’s all about.

LUMA, in many ways, highlights the reformation of the Binghamton community from a former industrial town in the Upstate rust-belt into a creative area of its own design. It creates an opportunity to highlight both the work of local artists, and the way that the area can fit into the new world it’s suddenly found itself a part of. It invites national and international talents into the area, and shows the world that we can be more than what we were.

“I wanted to showcase the strengths of our community,” Ludzki says. “What are the strengths we currently have? If we talk about economic development without the [impact of the local arts scene], we’re crazy.”

Perhaps, in Binghamton, we are a little crazy. But maybe that craziness can take us into the blinding light of an illuminated future.

The LUMA Projection Arts Festival will take place Friday, September 2nd, in downtown Binghamton. The event will start shortly after dusk (around 9pm) and continue until midnight. Admission is free. Most of the projection pieces will last between 3-5 minutes, and be played multiple times over the course of the night. The Binghamton Philharmonic’s piece will only be played three times. A map with specific timings for the Philharmonic, as well as further information about the festival, can be found at bingpop.com.