Art on the Mart will be presented as the largest permanent projection system in the world

To create this large-scale visual art installation, 34 Christie Boxer 4K30 projectors. Obscura Digital has developed a software-driven platform that will allow The Mart to offer a continuous exhibition of images by celebrated artists on an area of ​​​​more than two acres.

El Merchandise Mart, also known as The Mart, It is a building located in downtown Chicago (Illinois) which was inaugurated in 1930 to present itself as the largest in the world. With an area of ​​more than 370.000 square meters and an elevation of 25 flats, is visited by some 10 million people a year.

The largest permanent art installation in the world is being launched on the façade of this emblematic building, Art on the Mart. Its inauguration will take place on Saturday 29 September and four contemporary and digital works of art will be shown. The screening will last two hours and can be seen five nights a week., ten months a year for the next decades.

The exhibition will be dedicated solely to public art and will not display any type of promotional or advertising content.

The creative studio Obscura Digital has been in charge of implementing a permanent projection system that allows the building to be illuminated.. To carry it out, it has partnered with the property management company Vornado Realty Trust and the architecture firm Valerio Dewalt Train Associates (Vdta).

Project development

The challenge of this project was to create a projection system that would allow The Mart team to display the images in the building., while having to respect the restrictions of the Department of Transportation (Department of Transportation) that limit dynamic animations that can pose a danger by distracting drivers.

Obscura Digital has created a flexible content management system to upload any image and select from a series of effects or 'filters'. The software-driven platform allows The Mart to offer a continuous display of images by celebrated artists over an area of ​​more than 8.000 square meters (more than two acres).

A digital 3D model of the building has been created from a laser scan to take into account its architectural features, recreate the projection settings in the software and get the image to line up perfectly. Building windows are masked by software, so the projectors do not illuminate the interior of the building.

To execute the mapping, 34 Christie Digital Boxer 4K30 projectors offering a total of almost two million (1.980.000) of lumens and a resolution of 6,000×2.620 pixels. These are located in a room, Custom designed and weatherproof.

In the project, a 3D architectural mapping of 3 canales. The main ones have 16 projectors each, stacked to increase shine, and the central channel, covering the central tower, It has two stacked projectors. Channels are mixed to create a perfect image.

Projectors are manually calibrated to ensure the image fits the façade. Mapping on different architectural facets of the building is adjusted independently to minimize differences in color and brightness.