Image Beyond the Screen

4Points of View: Origins, History and Limits of Projection Mapping

4.1. The origins of a movement towards alternative forms according to Romain Tardy

4.1.1. Origins and VJing

Romain Tardy participated as an author in the emergence of a trend that took the name of projection mapping. First, under a collective signature with Anti-VJ, then in his own name, before making other works of light that he says are not projection mapping. When Romain Tardy first mapped in 2006, it is not certain whether the term “video mapping” was used. This took place in a hangar where projections on crosses were made. In 2007 and 2008, on the other hand, the word mapping was used. It is difficult to remember his influences at the time, he says, but it was certainly very exciting to experiment with this form; everything seemed new, although with Peper’s ghost, there was already the idea of increasing a reality and Tony Oursler or Michael Naimark in the 1990s were using digital to do projection mapping.

While projection mapping comes from VJing (manipulation of digital imagery in real-time) for some, it is a question of generation. And, notes Romain Tardy, without himself knowing what this is due to, a community has formed according to the VJing. This network database of electronic festivals helped to develop the mapping. Machines were quite expensive at first for an independent artist, he also recounts, but then access to equipment changed the situation with the democratization of technological tools. ...