Urbanscreen makes places shine and tell stories

Urbanscreen has made a name for itself with spectacular video projections on buildings such as the Sydney Opera House. Initially focussing on the aesthetic combination of moving images and architecture, the Bremen-based company now uses special locations in order to tell their stories.

The people of Hamburg had never seen their Kunsthalle like this before. Stones suddenly seemed to emerge from the time-honoured building and gigantic hands stroked the façade, on which new patterns, shadows and geometric structures constantly formed. It was a dramatic spectacle that brought the Bremen-based projection professionals from Urbanscreen international attention around 16 years ago. This was followed by up to 1,000 requests per year – from the USA to Sydney, where they completely restaged the world-famous opera house with their projections during the "Vivid" light and music festival in 2012. It was a level of success that sometimes left the team itself astonished.

"We tell stories"

The team from Bremen are still in demand internationally. However, their field of work has changed. While in the beginning effects, patterns and shapes took centre stage, today's works by Urbanscreen more strongly incorporate the individual location with its history and particular character: "We tell stories that are tied to the place where they are shown. This creates a special experience," says Till Botterweck, who is Managing Director alongside Majo Ussat and has been involved from the very beginning. In 2021, the projection professionals staged the state parliament building in Wiesbaden on the occasion of the anniversary celebrations "75 years of democracy in Hesse", showing how the state parliament works and how democracy functions in everyday life.

Starting with dynamic music, racing lights and glowing lines on the walls and contours of the building's classicist façade, an emotional ride through Hesse's history unfolded. The audience was treated to a fast-paced show with historical black and white photos, impressions from inside the building and huge shots of people, cities and landscapes, linked to a central message that was heard off-stage: "Democracy thrives on participation – we are all democracy".

Till Botterweck – originally an architect – likes to compare the development of building projections to the early history of cinema: "In the beginning, cinema was a sensation. People went and were amazed that they could see real life on the big screen. Today, we have long been judging cinema by the history and quality of the films." Projection mapping, he says, in which building façades or other surfaces serve as a screen, is similar. "The technology is already very widespread today, so the focus is more on content."

It all started with a media wall in Bremen's Steintor

The success story of Urbanscreen began in the mid-noughties with a so-called media wall on a building in Bremen's trendy Steintor neighbourhood. Here, video artists were able to show their work. The project was curated by Urbanscreen's future creative artists and supplemented with their own works. In 2008, they founded their own company to be able to offer architecturally customised video projections in other cities as well.

Urbanscreen showed that projections can bring history to life at the celebrations to mark 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Projections at six historical locations brought together eyewitness accounts, film sequences and historical images. On one façade of the Humboldt Forum, where the Palace of the Republic – home to the former East German parliament – once stood, Honecker and Gorbachev suddenly appeared on the balcony waving. The spectators stood exactly where demonstrators once protested at the celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the GDR. The onlookers suddenly became participants in this historic scene.

Citizens' wishes visualised in Chemnitz

Urbanscreen's art is all about special places. About what these places were, what they mean to people – or about what they can become. In Chemnitz, the team recently used artificial intelligence to visualise citizens' wishes for the redesign of Marienplatz square behind the Karl Marx Monument: "We interviewed 60 people, from schoolchildren to the mayor. The AI used this to create visualisations that reflect the diverse perspectives – without a subjective filter," says Botterweck. For projects such as this, Urbanscreen likes to use artificial intelligence as a useful tool. However, the team still sees the actual artistic and dramaturgical work of storytelling at the individual locations as a deeply human task.

But projection mapping and site-specific media installations are not only able to show what places once were or how they can be changed. Digital media installations can also characterise and change places themselves, explains Botterweck. For example, Urbanscreen recently developed six installations for a large new railway station in the Taiwanese metropolis of Kaohsiung, including a huge LED station clock that displays weather data as well as the time – a modern Instagram hotspot. An organ sculpture in the hall plays short pieces of music every hour and in an urban sound forest passers-by can listen to interviews with contemporary witnesses and thus connect emotionally with the location.

Strong ties to Bremen

With around 20 projects a year and a permanent core team of five employees, Urbanscreen operates internationally without losing its strong ties to Bremen. Together with other creative minds, the team works in the high-ceilinged rooms of a former schnapps factory on the banks of the Kleine Weser in Bremen's Neustadt district. What Till Botterweck and his colleagues particularly appreciate about the Hanseatic city are the close local networks, the ease of contact and the openness to new ideas. "Many people here immediately say: 'Cool idea'. Bremen is a place of creativity where a lot is possible."

From passive spectators to active contributors

There are also very different examples of the diverse work of Urbanscreen in our home town. The team created a permanent installation in the "Denkort Bunker Valentin", the ruins of a submarine shipyard in whose construction thousands of forced labourers were used during the Second World War. It combines historical photographs with interviews with contemporary witnesses. And for the city library, Urbanscreen developed software that allows visitors to paint on a wall using a tablet, transform their pictures into unusual artistic styles with the help of AI and combine them with stories. Such projects represent a further trend in media art: away from mere spectatorship towards participation and active contribution.

The company is currently working together with public transport provider Bremer Straßenbahn AG. As part of this project, children's voices provide lively announcements at bus and tram stops that make people smile and create a small community experience.

Together with director Daniel Fries, Urbanscreen is also developing a play at Bremen Theatre about the Mozarttrasse, an unrealised mammoth project in Bremen in the 1970s, in which a gigantic motorway was to be built through a historic Bremen district. The project was halted due to persistent protests from local residents. The play is conceived as a city tour with film projections and invites the audience to reflect on urban development and democratic participation at the original locations.