Vivid Sydney 2022

With an entire city as their inspiration, The Electric Canvas executed a massive interactive projection for this year’s Vivid Sydney.

When The Electric Canvas were asked to work on Vivid Sydney 2022, they were prompted with this year’s theme: the “Spirit of Sydney,” leaving room for interpretation. As this was the first Vivid Sydney event since the COVID-19 pandemic, the team were especially motivated to give the crowd a next-level experience.

The Electric Canvas began with the idea to make a large building projection. Quickly, they devised a plan to incorporate two interactive stations from servers running Notch and Azure Kinect with screens that the public could use. Those in attendance were given their own Kinect avatars which they could see on the screens in front of them and up on the clock tower of the building, where they were sent via NDI. The overall projection comprised a main timeline video as well as inserts of NDI in an overlay video which smoothly blended all of the material.

The team also drove video on the media server. In the words of Richard De Souza, Creative Director at The Electric Canvas, they “noded” a blob tracker so that when people interacted, they would send OSC for different light-reach points so as to have secondary motion reinforcing the final product. For instance, different windows on the building would light up depending on what zone people waved their hands from. With several layers of interactivity, the show could be endlessly engaging.

“I think [Notch’s] accessibility makes it a joy to work with. I’ve used it like After Effects for past projects, but for this one, it worked best as an insert within a large-scale canvas with huge resolutions.”

Richard De Souza, Creative Director, The Electric Canvas

Additional press coverage:
Time Out, Finder.

Credits
Client: Vivid Sydney
Production Company: The Electric Canvas
Project Director & Projection Designer: Peter Milne
Creative Director & Interactive Developer: Richard De Souza

Creative Producer: Jacqueline Flindell
Technical Director: Peter Janusz
Lead Motion Graphics: Ruru Zhuang
Motion Graphics: Magdalena Vinterova, Gina Quadraccia, Jason Poley, & Anthony Hayes
Composer & Sound Designer: Thomas Marland