Rose Bruford College gets Catalyst and PixelMAD

Projected Image Digital has supplied leading theatre and performance design college Rose Bruford in Sidcup, Kent with a High End Systems Catalyst Pro version 3 digital media server (software only) and a PixelMAD playback system for running low resolution video sources through LED lighting fixtures.
These were purchased by the college’s Lighting department as part of a new investment in digital scenography, a move co-ordinated by Nick Hunt, lecturer in Lighting Design, and Rob Fowler for PID. The funding came from a ‘Knowledge Transfer’ scheme, designed to encourage partnerships between higher education and industry.
“With the ‘convergence’ of video and lighting becoming increasingly common,” said Hunt, “We wanted to start building up a laboratory of kit to enable us and our students to explore this technology.”
Hunt is interested in opening up new opportunities for lighting and stage designers with the digital technology. He thinks the way you can quickly, simply and highly effectively change the nature of a performance space directly from the lighting console and manipulate it in real time is taking the art to new dimensions of creative possibility.
It was a natural choice for Hunt to approach Projected Imaged Digital. The company specialises in all types of digital media from the content and concept point of view. “They are the experts and know their products exceptionally well. They use the technology themselves as well as supplying it”.
They looked at Catalyst and PixelMAD specifically not just because they wanted to use the technology, but also because they wanted to utilise it as a design tool.
Until very recently, video integrated into performance had been the domain of the more avant-garde and fringe theatre productions. The last 2 or 3 years has seen it increasingly becoming a mainstream production value and tool of expression. Rose Bruford, being a very vocationally focussed college, is interested generally in the effects of multimedia on all types of performance – conventional and other.
Once the decision had been made to purchase Catalyst and PixelMAD, Projected Image Digital pulled out all the stops to ensure it was delivered in time to be put through its paces by MA student Rachel Nicholson for her final assessed performance piece.
(GB)