Waddesdon Imaginarium, Winter Light at Waddesdon

Waddesdon Imaginarium (courtesy of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama)

At dusk on Sunday 11 November 2017, a ten-minute light and sound performance will be projected onto Waddesdon Manor (the National Trust house near Aylesbury, and former home of the Rothschild family). The Waddesdon Imaginarium will be repeated eight times each evening, Wednesday to Sunday, until 2 January 2018 as part of Waddesdon's Christmas Winter Light contemporary art programme. The spectacular video has been created using the latest in video projection mapping technologies by video design students from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

Seven students on the BA (Hons) Video Design for Live Performance at the Guildhall School have worked with the house's curatorial team and have scanned in 3D no less than 50 objects from Waddesdon’s collection, as well as mapped the front elevation of the building to enable the projection, and calculated the projection requirements (14 large format projectors) necessary for the enormous 1,700 square metre facade. In addition, around 40 students on other music pathways including the BMus (Hons) Electronic Music have been commissioned to create original music to accompany the projection. Uniquely, Waddesdon will be using three musical interpretations to accompany the 3D video projection performances, offering visitors different experiences of the Imaginarium.

Inspired by the architecture, gardens and history of Waddesdon, visitors will be see roaming porcelain animals, dancing musical clocks, fluttering clouds of butterflies and moths, and 18th-century portraits creating a fantastical visual story of Waddesdon. Waddesdon’s 2017 Winter Light programme also includes Electric Menagerie, a series of eleven light-based artworks inspired by the real and fantastical animals associated with Waddesdon and the Rothschild family, created by American artist Lauren Booth.



Full details from the Waddesdon website.