London’s Lightroom is a new, extraordinary four-story, AVdriven home for spectacular artist-led shows. For its 2023 debut, 59 Productions Ltd. turned to disguise solutions for high-performance video playback to drive the huge, immersive, “David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)” experience.
The innovative new Lightroom show is a joint venture between the London Theatre Company and 59 Productions. Designed by 59 Productions, the venue was built in collaboration with Haworth Tompkins architectural studio, as a sister space to the award-winning Bridge Theatre. As Lightroom’s partner, disguise sits at the heart of the technical set-up, providing the platform to deliver immersive visual experiences that transport visitors to new worlds.
Hockney’s fascination with the possibilities of new media comes to fruition with the 50-minute large-scale projection show that takes visitors on a personal journey through 60 years of the artist’s paintings, digital art, and set designs. In six themed chapters featuring an original score by American composer Nico Muhly and commentary by the artist himself, Hockney reveals his creative process so visitors can look more closely, truly, and joyously at his work.
The challenge for the Hockney show’s system design was the ability to work with large video resolutions and playback 10-bit video. It was also necessary for 59 Productions to install the system in an extremely compressed timeline in order to make final delivery.
James Roxburgh, Head of Technical and Production at 59 Productions, was long familiar with disguise, having used it for years. That experience brought a high comfort level for the demanding video playback and projection mapping needed to bring Hockney’s famous and color-driven art to life
Optimized to play up to four times uncompressed 4K60 using its high-performance NVME RAID drive array and capable of playing lossless 10-bit video, seven of disguise’s vx 4 media servers offered Lightroom the right solution. Paired with that is disguise’s Designer software, enabling an end-to-end workflow from pre-visualization all the way through to show control and delivery. Through Designer, the team was able to control the 29 projectors in the space – all projecting content for the seamless 108-million-pixel canvas.
“The vx 4 gives us playback of very high-resolution video files in full 10-bit color at 60 fps in a codec that presents every detail required of this fine art application,” Roxburgh explains. “disguise also provides a multi-user programming environment that enables us to work simultaneously, as a team, on line up, timeline and engineering across the site.”
The Times (London) called the resulting show “an immersive experience that doubles up as a gloriously illustrated lecture…a summary of all [Hockney] has learnt.” Other critics savaged the show—a true mark of the ground-breaking nature of mixing fine art and AV art.
On the audio side, the exhibition enhances the large-scale projection with immersive audio to make visitors feel like they are placed within each work of art as the story of Hockney’s creative processes unfolds. Supporting famous pieces including “A Bigger Splash” and “A Bigger Grand Canyon,” HOLOPLOT’s audio pumps out a score by Nico Muhly specifically composed for this exhibit. Other times, Hockney’s works are recreated one brush stroke at a time around visitors while the artist narrates his approach and muses his observations noticed over a career spanning 70 years.
The exhibit features the UK’s first fixed installation of a HOLOPLOT X1 Matrix Array sound system. Audio is delivered through an X1 system on each end of the main room, hidden within wall cavities, creating a seamless 360 degree audio projection surface. Visitors can come and marvel at the entirety of the show, which takes about 50 minutes, or relax and unwind under the spellbinding visuals for as long as they like.
A rarity in these sorts of exhibits, David Hockney was involved heavily during the planning of the show, from the visuals to the audio, to the immersive element of the show. The artist was even provided with a scale model of the venue so that he could watch and give input as the show came together. The show may have scandalized the London critics at its opening in February but was so well-received by the public that the run was extended to October of this year.
