Barco and Culturespaces partnership results in new immersive showpiece Bassins de Lumières

CEO Barco Jan De Witte visits Bassins de Lumières
 

Digital art center

 

Located in a former World War II submarine base facing the Atlantic Ocean, Bassins de Lumières offers an overwhelming, immersive experience devoted to major names in the history of contemporary art. The Bassins de Lumières program will alternate every year, but the first exhibitions are dedicated to Gustav Klimt and Paul Klee. Moving images of the artwork are projected onto the monumental architecture of the submarine base and reflected in the water of four enormous basins. Visitors can virtually walk into the artwork, by gangways and along the quays of the basins.

 

“Bassins de Lumières offers a totally unique, sensory experience, including projected video, light and sound,” says Augustin de Cointet de Fillain, Director of Bassins de Lumières and Culturespaces Digital, the exposition organizer. “The mix of the location, the recreated artwork from Klimt and Klee, and the superb image quality of Barco projectors make this exposition an unequaled experience.”

“Following the creation of the Atelier des Lumières, we are pleased to have created this enormous digital art center for the City of Bordeaux,” says Bruno Monnier, President of Culturespaces. “The Bassins de Lumières will offer visitors an unforgettable visual and audio experience in a unique setting, a place for sharing culture that is open to all types of visitors.” 

A groundbreaking and fruitful collaboration

The enormity of the submarine base structure and available projection surface – almost 14,000 m2 – made the organization decide to pull out all stops when it comes to projection technology. Culturespaces opted for no less than 72 Barco F80-Q12, 27 G60-W10, and 3 UDX-W32 laser projectors to be installed for the Bassins de Lumières project.

Previous Culturespaces projects with Barco projectors have proven to be successful as well. The French cultural organization already created similar digital art centers in Paris, with the Atelier des Lumières, and in Les Baux-de-Provence, with the Carrières de Lumières. But the new Bassins de Lumières project surpasses the previous ones in size: the submarine base’s surface area is three times the size of that of the Carrières de Lumières and eight times that of the Atelier de Lumières.

Renewed partnership

Culturespaces renewed its partnership with Barco in December 2019. The organization chose Barco as the exclusive projection technology partner for existing and future projects for three years. Both companies agreed on the delivery of 168 new laser projectors and a Barco service contract covering the entire equipment fleet.

According to Augustin de Cointet de Fillain, Bassins de Lumières received raving feedback upon its opening in June 2020, which should only make the organization more confident to work on new visual showpieces with Barco.

About Culturespaces

With 30 years of experience and more than 4 million visitors a year, Culturespaces, founded in 1990 by Bruno Monnier, is the leading private operator specializing in the global management of monuments, museums, and art centers. Since 2012, Culturespaces has also been one of the pioneers in creating digital art centers and immersive digital exhibitions.

About Barco

Barco designs technology to enable bright outcomes around the world. Seeing beyond the image, we develop visualization and collaboration solutions to help you work together, share insights, and wow audiences. Our focus is on three core markets: Enterprise (from meeting and control rooms to corporate spaces), Healthcare (from the radiology department to the operating room), and Entertainment (from movie theaters to live events and attractions). In 2019, we realized sales of 1.083 billion euro. We have a global team of 3,600 employees, whose passion for technology is captured in 400 granted patents.

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