The first Imagine Porty Prom art commission titled "Stroke" by Michael Pinsky which ran for 10 days from Saturday 27th March 2010.

The stunning Victorian Portobello Swim Centre was transformed at night by "Stroke", an animated artwork projected across the darkened pool surface...




When first contacted about the production on Michael Pinsky's Stroke, it seemed an interesting challenge as the brief called upon the entire swimming pool to be projected upon but with seperate rather than a single image. this amounted to a 260m2 area and also had a variety of interesting challenges. After measuring the pool accurately and doing some fairly complex drawings and geometry it was concluded that by dividing the pool into 6 equal parts 8.33m / 5.25m or close enough to 16:9 to work, it would be just possible to project from units mounted on top of wind up stands on the balconies at an angle 40 degrees from the ideal There was the added complication that the bottom of the pool was not level and that 4 of the projectors couldn't be in the perfect position due to pillars and vents. It was also clear that all the geometric correction would have to be done within the projectors themselves as each unit would differ slightly. It should be noted that this all had to be rigged safely without closing the pool and that fact and the limits of the budget meant that flying projectors was quickly ruled out.

We used 2 sanyo xu105 units for the centre with the corners being done with 4 sanyo xu106 mounted on custom mounts on manfrotti wind ups. During the setup the units were set to a custom aspect ratio and had massive amounts of keystone correction applied, the 4 outer units had huge amounts of corner keystone applied as the actual projected frame was nowhere near square to any edge of the pool due to the constraints of the projector placement. The fact that the fairly large area could be filled entirely with the images butted together within a few milimeters was a miracle in itself and even though the projectors had to be in Eco mode due to the heat and almost 100% humidity and that probably only half the actual frame of each unit was used, the brightness was more than adaquate.

The units were fed in 2 groups from seperate Minimacs giving a kalidascope effect over the entire pool as treated footage of swimmers formed an ever changing pattern. In a week and a half of performances not a single unit overheated or failed, so as far as pushing the technology to the limit in an unforgiving environment there probably cant be a harder test.

"As ever, working with Warpro was a real pleasure. With art installation 'Stroke' projected onto the surface of Portobello Swim Centre, Edinburgh, they came in with a really competitive price, found a technical solution to fit the budget, and were flexible with equipment, time and energies to ensure the project was completed successfully.

Collaborating with the artist to achieve tailored results, they went the extra mile to get quality results in an unusual space with technical restrictions. It makes a huge difference to work with a company you can trust to not only know their field inside out - from the low tech to the high - but one that delights in finding creative, safe solutions. Always incredibly easy to work with and sympathetic to the demands of each project, Warpro's become my first port of call".

Susan Grant
Public Art Participation Worker
Big Things on the Beach
Portobello Public Art House
56 Kings Road
Portobello, Edinburgh, UK, EH15 1DX

www.bigthingsonthebeach.org.uk

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