The metapole. team created a light installation called “Fairytale Holographic Forest” for the City of Light festival in Moscow's Zaryadye Park. Our task was to create an art installation that reflected the connection between tradition and modernity. A coniferous grove was provided as the venue for the project. The chosen location determined the future concept of the project: to transform this area into a fairy-tale forest inhabited by characters from Russian folklore familiar to us from childhood.
Seven art installations were created for the project from mirror-polished steel with curved shapes, complemented by neon lighting elements and multimedia holographic fans. They depicted fairy-tale characters: the Cat Scientist, the Frog Princess, Finist the Bright Falcon, the Swan Princess, the Firebird, and others. The visual effects were created in Houdini, and each object had its own audio accompaniment. Thanks to the reflective effect of the mirrored surfaces, the installation blended seamlessly into the surrounding environment, and the fairy-tale characters seemed to appear out of thin air and float in front of the viewer.
Light and sound helped the folklore characters “come to life” in the dark, transporting visitors to Zaryadye Park to a fairy-tale forest. The installation clearly showed that folklore is part of not only the culture of the past, but also of the future, in which it can find new life thanks to multimedia technologies.