Art & Heritage
Art & Heritage
A selection of our projects, past & recent
The Miller's Tale
This projection was created for the National Trust’s water mill at Lode, close to Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire. The piece was created by Ross Ashton & Karen Monid. The projection tells the story of flour, from planting the wheat to reaping and grinding the corn. The final section features a 3D model of the interior of the mill, being operated by the millers who staff the mill in real life. We carried out a green screen shoot of the millers and composited them into the scene.
The audio created by Karen Monid not only complimented the action in the mill, but also spread along the path to the mill so that the visitors experience began at a distance.
Click on the images to see the stunning results from this project.
Abbey 1000
Commissioned by St Edmundsbury Cathedral – 2022 Created for the 1000th anniversary of the ancient Abbey of St Edmund in 2020. The work recreated the story of the abbey from its foundation in 1020 until its dissolution in 1539. The event was delayed until 2022 due to COVID.
To create the script we worked with the Cathedral archives and the historian, Dr. Francis Young. The script and images were sourced from contemporary documents. These included The Life and Miracles of St. Edmund from the Morgan Library, chancery rolls from the National Archive, and Chronicle of Jocelyn de Brakelond – a monk at the abbey who gives us a rare and surprising insight into life at a monastery in the middle ages.
The voices heard are academics from the university of Durham and professional voice actors.
Click on the video to see the stunning results from this project.
The Mill's Are Alive
This projection was created for the National Trust’s water mill at Lode, close to Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire. The piece was created by Ross Ashton & Karen Monid. The projection tells the story of flour, from planting the wheat to reaping and grinding the corn. The final section features a 3D model of the interior of the mill, being operated by the millers who staff the mill in real life. We carried out a green screen shoot of the millers and composited them into the scene.
The spacial audio created by Karen Monid not only complimented the action in the mill, but also spread along the path to the mill so that the visitors experience began at a distance.
Click on the video to see the stunning results from this project.
Northern Lights
We were commissioned by the York Minster Fund to create an artwork for the finale of Northern Lights fund raising dinner. The resulting sound and immersive projection mapping installation Northern Lights was then opened to the public for two nights in 2018. The 3D projection covered the entire ceiling of the nave, and the west wall and doors of the Minster which includes the iconic Heart of Yorkshire window. The minster asked us to use the world famous medieval stained glass as our inspiration. We also drew on the writing of the Venerable Bede, in particular the parable of the sparrow. Other imagery and texts were drawn from Yorks Viking history and the texts on spirituality and stained glass by Bartolomeo da Bologna.
The surround audio system was designed for especially for this event and allowed the voices, music and sound effects to be routed to specific locations within the nave. One of the most exciting parts of our creative process is the opportunity to reach out to academics and experts and to share their knowledge. The inclusion of original source material into our art helps us enrich the publics appreciation of the artwork. We carry out rigorous research for our projects to present difficult material in a way with which modern audiences can connect. For Northern Lights, we were delighted to be able to work with a range of collaborators. For example, The Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York performed the texts in their original languages and these were included in the soundtrack. The Ordered Universe Project translated the original Latin texts and the York Glaziers Trust provided expertise on the history and design of medieval stained glass. The sound piece included a wide range of Icelandic, English and Italian medieval texts. Music was included from the Minster choir’s own repertoire, combining rich soundscapes with works as diverse as Clucas’ A Prayer Of Alcuin Of York and the Gloria from the Missa Octavi Toni by Orlande de Lassus.
“This may be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life” Twitter Comment ‘It was a triumph! Your show was absolutely brilliant! And every single person I have talked to who saw it was raving about it. Thank you so much!’ Diana Terry – The York Minster Fund
Out of the Aire
Out of the Aire, celebrated the people of Leeds and its history as a centre of innovation, engineering and the arts. It was commissioned by Leeds Light Night & was projected onto Leeds Civic Centre in October 2017.
The Soundtrack featured the work of 6 local bands and musicians, including the legendary Lord Silky.
The sources for the script and the original images were drawn from 10 local archives including Leeds Museums & Galleries, Leeds West Indian Carnival and the Yorkshire Film Archive. The voices that were heard in the soundtrack came from 16 local volunteers who were all recorded in Leeds over the course of a day.
Click on the images to see the stunning results from this project.
Triquetra
Commissioned by Illuminating York – 2013 TRIQUETRA is the history of the Jelling dynasty of Danish Viking Kings of the 10th & 11th century. They are Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn Forkbeard & Cnut The Great. Cnut was was King of England, Denmark and Norway – The North Sea Empire.
We visited York and chose the site of Clifford’s Tower as the most apt for the story we wanted to tell.
The entire script was created from contemporary documents, so that we could reflect the words and concerns, of people of the time. This meant us researching and translating documents in Old Norse, Old English and Latin. To be able to have the voices speak in their original languages we carried out a call out on Twitter for volunteer academics to help us. For the final piece, we recorded the voices of academics from York, Cambridge, Aberystwyth, Warwick & Sheffield.
Images were sourced from original carvings and illustrations of various origins.
The World Machine
CROWN OF LIGHT was commissioned as the centrepiece of the ‘Lumiere Festival’ in 2009 and was brought back by popular demand for 2011 and 2013. The artwork took as its inspiration the Lindisfarne Gospels and their relationship to Durham Cathedral.
In 2015, we produced another spectacular work THE WORLD MACHINE, which attracted upwards of 200,000 people to the city over four nights. THE WORLD MACHINE
was inspired by research carried out by The Ordered Universe Project into the scientific writings of Bishop Robert Grosseteste and his insights into cosmology and the place of humanity in the universe. This was juxtaposed against a modern view of cosmology as exemplified by the cutting-edge work of Prof. Carlos Frenk and the Durham Centre for Computational Cosmology.
Both artworks are firmly rooted in the architecture and history of the cathedral and the city. Many of images used were drawn from and inspired by architecture of the cathedral itself.
The ability to bring details of the cathedral art and architecture into our artwork creation allows the public to see and appreciate details of the design of these buildings that may not normally be seen.
We worked in deep collaboration with the academics and students at Durham University and for they had input into the creative process.
The Ordered Universe are carrying out new translations of the work of Robert Grosseteste. Although based in Durham the group is drawn from many academic institutions across the globe including the universities of Oxford, Berkeley, Chicago & Beirut.
Music Isobel Waller Bridge.
Sound Design Jon del Nero.
“I have found the Projection Studio both a joy to work with, and an enormously productive partner for public education. The capacity to work with world-class sound and light shows, is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the best of UK academic work.”
Giles Gasper
Professor of High Medieval History
Durham University
Children and The Arts
London, UK based The Projection Studio, headed by visual artist Ross Ashton, designed and created the record-breaking video artwork featuring 32 animated mosaic portraits of HM The Queen that is being projected onto Buckingham Palace this week. The ‘Face Britain’ project was instigated by The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts and brought to life by PhotoBox. It has enabled over 200,000 children to make their faces famous on the front of one of London’s most iconic landmarks. It is also the first time that video projections have ever been used on the front of the Palace.
The video montage of the 32 portraits is attempting to break the Guinness World Records Title for the Largest Collaborative Artwork, that is the most artists working on the same art installation. The previous record stands at 28,267 artists. Children aged 4 – 16 were invited to produce their own self-portraits by Face Britain encompassing all levels of skill and in any medium, including drawing, photography, textiles, painting and graphics. These were uploaded to PhotoBox. Ashton came up with the idea of animated mosaics. He worked with Moscow-based Boris Glazer to create a bespoke version of his Mazaika software to encode all the photos and then compose the 32 images of The Queen from the 200,000 or so self-portraits that were submitted
Ashton says, “I am hugely proud and absolutely delighted to be involved in this collaboration, and naturally it’s a great honour to work directly for the Prince’s Charities. There have been plenty of creative and technical challenges and it’s very satisfying to get the opportunity of pushing the boundaries and breaking new ground”. In addition to the Buckingham Palace projections, the 32 portraits are being simultaneously shown for 24 hours on BBC Big Screens in 18 public locations nationwide. Face Britain celebrates the UK’s children and young people in the run up to HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
