Nearly 60 Digital Projection laser projectors, including 46 TITAN Laser 37000 WU and 13 M-Vision 23000 WU, were behind eye-catching displays at the recent Sharjah Light Festival in the emirate of Sharjah, UAE. For the 2024 festival, Dubai-based videomapping specialist Artabesk created the visual experiences – including a 300m × 50m projection onto a mountain for The Jewel of Al Rafisah Dam 3D show, and another projection onto the mammoth Sharjah Mosque.
The 12-day festival, which gets more than 500,000 visitors, showcases the heritage and architecture of the emirate with a carnival of lights, colours and music. The largest festival of its kind in the region, artists use large-scale projection mapping to illuminate landmarks such as the Sharjah Mosque and the spectacular Hajjar Mountains, which overlook the Al Rafisah Dam.
The Al Rafisah Dam, an hour’s drive out of Sharjah city, was the venue for The Jewel of Al Rafisah Dam, a 3D projection mapping show, inspired by the ‘Golden Age of Sharjah’, focusing on the ancient history of the city of Khorfakkan and the UAE’s native flora and fauna. At its climax, 12 swans emerge from the mountain behind the dam, and dance on the waters of the Wadi Shie river.
The Jewel of Al Rafisah Dam marked the first time visual content had been mapped onto a mountain of that size during the festival. The feat involved several challenges, as Mounir Harbaoui, founder and managing director of Artabesk, explained: “We had two main challenges for this projection: the brightness, as the mountain is a brownish, stone colour, and the multiple shadows the mountain creates, as it is not a flat surface.”
Artabesk used the TITAN Laser 37000 WU, a 3-Chip DLP projector, whose 37000 (WUXGA)/31000 (4K-UHD)-lumen output makes it suitable for large outdoor applications. “We decided to use our new TITAN Laser 37000, as it is capable of projecting up to 40m from each projector,” said Mounir Harbaoui, outlining how his team addressed the brightness issue. “We also switched off the street lights so we could create a completely dark environment.”
The second challenge was resolved by concentrating all 16 TITAN Laser 37000 WU projectors on one point on the mountain, which resulted in a “super clear” image when viewed from the audience, added Mounir Harbaoui.
Also among the four festival sites entrusted to Artabesk, which used a mix of TITAN Laser 37000 WU and M-Vision 23000 WU projectors, was the Sharjah Mosque, located on a 190,000m² (2m sq ft) site in Sharjah city. There, Artabesk employed 21 TITAN Laser 37000 WU to create a 400m² linear projection, divided into eight areas across the entire surface of the mammoth mosque, whose minarets alone are almost 40m high.
Unlike the Al Rafisah Dam mountain projection, which featured moving visuals and music, the installation for Sharjah Mosque Artabesk was limited to still images, given the sensitivities associated with projecting onto a religious site. Despite this, the ultra-bright imagery generated by the TITAN Laser projectors ensured it regarded as a highlight of the festival, which concluded on 18 February.
