Pepper’s Ghost on the Catwalk

Recently, I stumpled upon an interesting video of a fashion show. Usually, fashions shows are about as attractive to me as a stamp collections, but this one had a special feature: The models were surrounded by projections.

From a technical point of view, this is very fascinating. Usually, images are projected on screens and not onto thin air like it appears to be in this show.

The trick of this projection seems to be a thin foil. It is very transparent but can reflect the light of a strong projector. When it’s dark the foil appears transparent and you only see what is projected on it – right in the middle of nothing.

Here is another example which probably used the same technique:

Stuff like that could be used for spacy things outside of fashion shows. Mixed with interactivity you could let people walk around virtual characters which even react to them. To me it looks like another step to merge reality and fiction.

One small impression how this could look was already presented by the Gorillaz and Madonna at last year’s Grammy ceremony (although the trick was different in this case):

Imagine a music installation where you can walk around the singer and she turns to you as soon as you are behind her. Or a projected rain cloud which keeps floating above the visitor. ^_^

More

» crBlog: Diesel Show: Underwater Magic (article with more images of the fashion show)
» LiveDesign: Peppaz Ghost: Gorillaz at the Grammy’s
» Musion Systems (manufacturer of such systems)
» Pepper’s Ghost auf dem Laufsteg (German version of this article)

(via Boing Boing)