How Do You Make Projection Mapping Even Trippier? Just Add 3-D Glasses

We've seen many, many, many times before how projection mapping can be used to create mind-blowing optical illusions. But what happens when you add 3-D glasses to the mix?

That was the idea behind Diplopia, a 3-D , projection mapping piece created by Onionlab, a Barcelona-based multidisciplinary art studio dedicated to motion design. By putting on a pair of anaglyphic 3-D glasses, like the ones you used to wear to the theater, the audience at FIMG was able to experience a show in which a physical building morphed, bubbled, and blew apart, right in front of their eyes.

Created for the second annual International Mapping Festival in Girona (or FIMG), this year's festival had "Contradictions" as a theme. Asked to headline the show, Onionlab was challenged to come up with a piece that explored opposing concepts like light and darkness, flexibility and rigidness, dryness and wetness, noise and silence, and so on. To get these concepts across, Onionlab decided to embrace a technology that is relatively unexplored in projection mapping: anaglyphic 3-D, which is, in and of itself, an exploration of contrast—namely, how light projected in different colors in each eyes can trick the mind into thinking 2-D light is transforming, three-dimensional space.

You could take any 10 seconds of the above video, and transform it into an astonishing GIF. In the hands of Onionlab, a facade in the heart of Girona explodes, bubbles, ripples, and shatters. It's an excellent demonstration of projection mapping's illusionary power even without the 3-D, but if you have a spare pair of anaglyphic 3-D glasses around—maybe from the '90s? Breathtaking.

According to executive producer Joel Mestre, Diplonia has lit a bit of a fire under Onionlab to further explore the limits of stereoscopic projection mapping. "We're really looking to find new territories to visit in Europe, the U.S. and Asia," he says. He hints that Onionlab would really like to use this technology to bring rock concerts to life. "We love music and we'd love to produce some big shows to tour around the world."

Maybe projection mapping is the next Tupac hologram.

[via PSFK]

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