Lumen were asked by The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, to install Ghanaian artist, Ibrahim Mahama‘s latest artwork for the Manchester International Festival. The video piece is within the exhibition titled ‘Parliament of Ghosts‘ and it compromises of 7 channels of synchronised video housed within a ‘concrete’ silo inside of The Whitworth Gallery.

Seven, 16:9 native, Vivitek DH4661Z laser projectors, were mounted with custom made brackets on the silo walls. This was quite tricky due to the textured ‘concrete’ type wall panels.

The 7 channels of synchronised video fed the projectors from our custom built AV rack hiding within the silo walls. This rack is a fully synchronised, 4k capable, 8 channel video system powered by a computer and 2 Blackmagic Hyperdeck Pro 2’s. It is a very high quality, stable, synchronised video playback system, whether for playing two synchronised 4K video files or eight synchronised 1080p video files at high bitrates in ProRes format. Or even just playback of one video in very high quality. Playback can be remotely controlled by any phone, tablet or computer.

Lining up seven videos right next to each other, so it looks all level, is not a simple task, but with a combination of physical bracket adjustment, mechanical lens movement and digital adjustment within the projectors themselves, the end result was very impressive. Also the lack of raster from the projectors, as they are 16:9 native, meant there was no additional light above and below the videos themselves, which gives a strong look coupled with the high contrast ratio of the projectors.

It is a privilege to be able to work on ambitious art installations such as this one. We thank the Whitworth for continuing to choose to work with Lumen.

Installation by James Islip, Michael Bryant, Tristan Clutterbuck, Joe Osborne, Kathryn Gray and Stuart Bannister.