A projection onto a building only works if the viewer forgets about the projector. The trick is not in the power of the machine, but in the prior calculation: a model of the facade must be created, the image cut out piece by piece, and synchronised with a soundtrack so that the light appears to emanate from the stone rather than fall upon it. This technique is called videomapping, and Rodrigo Tamariz Music & Mapping, formed by Rodrigo Tamariz and Virginia Urdiales, has over twenty-four years of experience and more than two hundred visual shows to its name.
The link with La Palma
Of all the places they have been, the island is the one that has lasted the longest for them. They have been collaborating closely with the Manolo Blahnik School of Art in Santa Cruz de La Palma for over ten years, and this relationship takes a specific form: each year they award scholarships to at least two students from the centre to attend the training and technological programmes of the MAPPING ME! festival, which they themselves direct on the mainland. It is not a sponsorship or a loan of equipment, but the opportunity for a student from La Palma to see from the inside how a projection festival is put together.
On the island, they also created El Bosque Mágico de la Alameda in Santa Cruz de La Palma, as part of the FAVE festival: a walk-through route of light and poetry, created with Imaginart Teatro, from the same family as the installations they have taken to gardens, palaces, and museums in other cities. Previously, they had organised a conference in the capital on new technologies applied to the performing arts, with a course at the School of Art itself, a videomapping practice on the city's balconies, and a seminar at the Teatro Chico.
Two festivals and a classroom in Cuba
Directing a festival is a different craft from putting on a show. Tamariz and Urdiales manage two: DRO.P, for electronic music and visuals, in Palencia, and MAPPING ME!, the video art and mapping festival of Castilla y León held in Medina del Campo, which was one of the first dedicated to this technique in Spain. Behind each edition lies programming, technical production, original music, and the not insignificant logistics of moving projection equipment through the streets.
To this they add the videomapping chair at the International School of Film and Television in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, and the direction of the Mentor Programme for new technologies applied to the performing arts. They claim to be pioneers of this technique in Spain, West Africa, and South America, three territories where projection onto buildings arrived later than in Central Europe.
Music is the other half of their work: they compose soundtracks for film, television, and theatre. Their accolades include a Max Award for best street performance, three Florencio awards in Uruguay, a recognition for artistic innovation and another for their career, the Intercultural Film Promotion Award from Ecuador, and an honourable mention from CRESPIAL, the regional Unesco centre for the intangible cultural heritage of Latin America.
