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Bioluminescence @ Bega Streetlight Festival

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October 26, 2025

Bioluminescence landed in Bega Town for the Bega Streetlight Festival!

With workshops on 22-23 October and the main event on 24 October 2025.

Brought to the festival by the wonderful people at the @bega_chamber, Bioluminescence engaged a group of @bega_highschool students to create their own video installation in the centre of town. Day one usually starts with the question of what is your name and native spirit animal and we got amazing responses everything from a Eastern Water Skink to Wombats, Magpies and Red Belly Black snakes with most of these being the result of close up encounters! Then it was down to business with video format breakdown, why we would shoot video at higher frame rates (so we can slow it down) and a bunch of practical camera tips before getting out and exploring the amazing Littleton Gardens and the main street of Bega to start the content creation process. Once back in the fabulous @secca__bega Project Space we got down to editing our videos and building the foundation for the video projection installation. At the end of the day 50 videos clips had been created and we were on our way! The cool thing about this is how all of the installation content will all have been shot within 100 metres of it and all created by young people flexing their creative muscles and sharing their vision! We were ready for day two! Thanks again to @eye_candy_portals for helping out and sharing his deep knowledge base!

This first photo says it all! Second day and this group of young people were working as a team to plan out how they are going to slice and dice this massive wall to create a site specific video installation for their community! When given the opportunity and a small amount of time the ability of young people to learn new skills and immediately apply them to deliver a shared goal is astounding! From a quick overview of video projector technology to learning @heavym_software and mapping the @secca__bega Project Space to doing it for real in Ayres Walkway and on the old NAB building. There was the important safety briefing (key words – hazards, risks, controls and a reminder that safety is everyones responsibility) and then we set up the gear and mapped. A small blessing was an overcast afternoon allowing us to start mapping a bit earlier than sunset.

Both locations were mapped and ready to go for the big event! Thanks again @eye_candy_portals for sharing knowledge, lifting stuff, taking pics and being a genuine big brain! Thanks to the @bega_chamber of commerce for having us light up the town!

Thank you Bega Streetlight Festival! The final day of the Bioluminescence program always starts with a crew dinner. This is a great opportunity to reflect on the past few days, review our process for the evening, do a final safety assessment of the site and triple check the set up. With the festival starting at 5pm and sunset at 7.30pm there were a few moments of panic when the Bioluminoids saw the thousands of people walking around and the realised the size of the audience! Staying busy by practicing with the equipment and refining the performance kept the panic at bay until the sun (finally) went down and the projectors came on and Ayres Walkway lit up with their videos and the addition of a video microscope. The two and half hours saw hundreds of people come past, many stopping to chat and ask question of how these young people made the installation. @eye_candy_portals busted out the Beyard and had the Bioluminoids moving through the crowd using the arm mounted projector to light up a paper parasol and create perfect camera moments with the installation behind. Suddenly it was all over and everyone pitched in to pack up following the “leave no trace” principle. Thanks again to @begastreetlightfestival and @bega_chamber for making it happen and the amazing staff at @bega_highschool for hosting us! Thanks to the @bega_chamber of commerce for having us light up the town!

Bioluminescence @ Darwin High School

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October 26, 2025

Oh the places you will go! Bioluminescence was invited to work with students from Darwin High School on Larrikia Country and share the content creation through to public performance process. Our mission: build a site specific audio-visual installation in four days!

Day one saw ten young people from year 10, 11 & 12 sign up for the program, roll up their sleeves and get straight into it. We explored the coastline and got footage of black cockatoos, busy ants on beautiful flowers and even turtles swimming in the nearby pond of the Darwin Museum. Field recordings were taken of birds, the waves and anything this else they could find.

Back in the studio it was clip editing time and the students turned their raw videos into ever evolving abstract art works as they explored LumaFusion on the iPads. We explored the sonic space of Samplr and building soundscapes for the installation.

Day two was learning how projectors work, how to set them up, site selection, power requirements and safety were all touched on as we turned the art studio into a projection mapping paradise exploring how HeavyM can turn any space into a glowing moving art work.

Day three was setting up scaffold and the projectors in “The Tank” – a repurposed massive water tank that supplied the city of Darwin! The Tank gave us massive textured concrete walls to use as our canvas. The creativity of the crew shone as they drew fantastic shapes across the wall to show their video content.

Showtime! The tech was set up including a full PA with iPads running Samplr and a table of video tech to paint the walls with light and fill the massive tank with sounds. Sound and light filled the space and the crew turned on an amazing show that included opportunities for the audience to interact with the video microscope and add to the soundscapes by playing with the iPads.

The creativity, imagination and motivation of the Darwin High School students was impressive! Even the long days and long nights didn’t dampen their enthusiasm and there were smiles all around at the end of the night after the pack up!

A big thanks to the Darwin High School arts faculty for the invitation and for hosting Bioluminescence!

Bioluminescence @ The Henry Lawson Festival – Grenfell 2025

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October 26, 2025

The Bioluminescence Project headed to Grenfell in regional NSW to create projections for the opening night of the Henry Lawson Festival 2025. We ran workshops on Wednesday 4 & Thursday 5 June withthe main event happening on a chilly Friday night 6 June.

Hello Grenfell! We got straight into it and headed out to explore the Grenfell Showgrounds environment. The winter wind provided opportunities to capture video of leaves and grasses moving in the wind with plenty of rusty barbed wire and weathered logs for textures. There was even an old tyre with some water in it that had amazing algae patterns that were captured using a macro lens.

After an hour of biodiversity exploration it was time to warp, mirror, saturate and contrast the videos as the Bioluminioids used LumaFusion on the iPads to flex their creative muscle and create ingredients for the show. This is rapid content creation at its best! No time to think, just get in the creative flow and churn out amazing work!

The end of the day involved getting the big projectors out with @eye_candy_portals to test them on the Grenfell Showgrounds Pavilion and see what was possible. There are tools to work out projector placement, throw distances, images sizes and brightness which is always done at each site but there is nothing more fun that seeing the calculations work and doing some fine tuning on location!

Day two always starts with a bit of reflection at how far we have come in such a short time. In one day the Bioluminoids had shot video from the surrounding environment, learned a new video editing app and had generated the majority of content for the performance on Friday. You know that they had picked it up when they walk in the door for day two grab their iPad and start making more clips!

But there is more to do! After a bit of talking at them about the hardware and software we were going to use it was straight into hands-on video projection mapping practice. Mapping the inside of the pavilion before we headed out into the cold to do the outside. There was time for setting up and playing on the other visual content toys including the custom glitch photo app on one of @eye_candy_portals phones with a special macro lens attachment. Various items were collected to build a micro snapshot of the local environment in a petrie dish and for the document camera.

In record freezing temperatures we set up the projectors and got busy mapping the enormous Grenfell Showground Pavilion. The Bioluminoids flexed their creative muscles to come up with a cool triangle motif across the side and then iterated across the rest of the building. A quick test with the famous Beyard and we are ready and excited for the performance!!!

It doesn’t matter how many Bioluminescence projects we do each and everyone is unique and special and the wonder when it all comes together never gets old! The wonder at the creativity of young people, their creative problem solving skills and their natural ability to put on a hell of a show! There is always a calm before the storm – all the gear is set up and we wait for the sun to go down and hope that the projectors are in the right spot (pretty close), that the software won’t crash (it did) and that it will look as good as we think it does (it looked even better!).

And suddenly it’s dark and the projections pop. The W.H. Simpson Pavilion comes alive with the Bioluminoids’ videos, the live cameras and @eye_candy_portals glitch camera and macro lens. A three hour performance is massive but the crew are up to the task. Triggering their clips using a MIDI controller and Resolume Avenue, creating live compositions using found objects from the local environment and processing through the @entropyandsons Recursion Studio and building a macro world and capturing it with a video microscope are all elements to create a constantly shifting and evolving light mural across the building. Other young people come in to see what is happening and get lost in putting their hands in the camera, swapping out things on the turntables and even being shown by the Bioluminoids how to trigger clips and use the Recursion Studio. We even set a projector up in the van to project the logo.

This amazing night couldn’t have happened without the support of the Henry Lawson Festival committee who helped with a thousand things! Thank you for bringing us to Grenfell to work with your young people to light up their place.

Bioluminescence is supported by @regionalartsnsw, @regionalartsaustralia and is in partnership with the Henry Lawson Festival Committee and @artsoutwest
The Regional Arts Fund is an Australian Government initiative that supports sustainable cultural development in regional, remote and very remote Australia.
The project was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, provided through Regional Arts Australia and Regional Arts NSW.

Bioluminescence @ The Station Creative Launch – Wagga Wagga

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October 26, 2025

The Bioluminescence Project headed to Wagga Wagga to create projections for the launch of Eastern Riverina Arts’ new creative space The Station Creative! We ran workshops on Wednesday 14 & Thursday 15 May followed up by two nights of performances Friday 16 and Saturday 17 May 2025.

Day One: Hello Wagga Wagga! Day one started with some tech talk about frame rates, resolutions and video formats followed with hints and tips on getting better video out of your devices by thinking about composition, contrasts of texture and colour, camera movements and other ways to make the ordinary extraordinary. With new techniques on how to shoot video the bioluminoids explored the Wollundry Lagoon taking the time to see the micro and the macro in their local environment and capture a bunch of video of it. After lunch it was editing with #Lumafusion to get our content ready for the shows on Friday and Saturday night for the @easternriverinaarts Station Creative launch!

Day three was our first performance and the Bioluminoids kicked it and ripped it! After a group feed of pizza, setting up the kit, a final safety briefing and sorting some tech issues, it was show time! It was chaos with hundreds of people, bands playing next to us on the stage and two projection ops stations with a bunch of content options controlling three projectors and the crew handled it perfectly and ran a three hour show that never was the same thing twice! @eye_candy_portals had the Beyard out with plenty of punters grabbing the parasol while the crew used the arm mounted projector for lots of cool photo examples. We even had some of the audience interact with the live glitch camera on the set up.

Wow wow wow!! Two nights in a row and the Bioluminoids smashed it again!! Its a massive effort but they did with smiles and fun and supported each other, communicated with the crew and the punters and brought a whole heap of light, colour and joy! The opportunity to do a second night really embedded all of the skills they had learned. From set up to pack down they knew what to do and when to do it. They troubled shot, tested and then had the gear set up humming. The Beyard was in full swing with the audience lining up to have a photo taken with the parasol and projections. Thanks to the young people who signed up to blow minds and make smiles, thanks to the the always enthusiastic and joyful @eye_candy_portals and to the whole @easternriverinaarts team. The Station Creative launch was the best!.

Bioluminescence is supported by the NSW Government through @creatensw

Bioluminescence @ Narooma Oyster Festival 2025

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October 26, 2025

The Bioluminescence Project partnered with River Of Art, Narooma High School and Narooma Rocks to create an audio-visual performance at the opening night of the Narooma Oyster Festival Friday 2 May 2025.

The project was made possible by the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal FRRR

Day one! Narooma High students braved the drizzle and spent the day with the Bioluminescence project exploring the Wagonga Inlet foreshore using a variety of video technology to capture the amazing biodiversity to build content for the main event on Friday night at the Narooma Oyster Festival where they will light up a 25m marquee at the entrance to the festival! Thanks to @naroomaoysterfest @riverofart and @frrr_aus to help make it happen.

Day two!!! The intrepid Bioluminoids continued their creative journey finishing off creating their video content and then straight into learning about the video projection mapping process. There is so much in this – lumens, throw ratios, projectors, software, hardware, safety, planning, and teamwork and then putting it all together to publicly perform the next day! After practicing in the Narooma Library and a crew dinner we headed to site to install the projectors and map the massive marquee that will be our canvas on Friday night. It is special to go from small scale practice to the large scale real thing and put those skills to use straight away. There was even an opportunity to practice with the @eye_candy_portals Beyard arm mounted projector! We had a briefing from the @riverofart Chair – Corin. Everything was mapped and we were ready for the next night!

Showtime at @naroomaoysterfest !! In two days these young people built this!! Then they kept the show going for a whole 3 hours! In between Greek doughnuts and Danish pancakes the Bioluminoids created an amazing shifting, morphing spectacle of light and colour all using their own video content! It is always special for us to see when it all clicks and the young people take over and not only perform but improvise and evolve the base set up. Truely magical!! Hundreds of people walked past, stopped and asked questions, interacted with the @eye_candy_portals Beyard, had a go on the video microscope and chatted to the crew. What an awesome few days hanging with the next generation of digital creatives! The future is safe in their hands!

Bioluminescence @ Cobargo Folk Festival 2025

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October 26, 2025

The Bioluminescence Project was invited to Cobargo for the third time to create an audio-visual performance on the Saturday night of the Festival on 1 March 2025.

The Regional Arts Fund is an Australian Government initiative that supports sustainable cultural development in regional, remote and very remote Australia.
The project was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, provided through Regional Arts Australia and Regional Arts NSW.

10 young people from right across the region hit the festival site on Thursday where after a site induction from the site manager we explored Narira Creek and found some amazing biodiversity all around the festival site. Back to the shed for editing their videos using Lumafusion. Day 2 was video projection mapping using @heavym_software and then some VJ practice using #govj by @lightbeamappsdotcom. @eye_candy_portals gave a session on how he made the Beyard app and how to integrate the videos made by the crew. Then it was down to our sites – we have two Ops Stations this year to project on to a 14m round tent. More safety briefings before we got on to mapping this massive structure getting ready for Saturday night.

Boom! What an amazing show put on by these talented young people! Every high school in the region was represented by the group! The 14m diameter tent was a perfect canvas with two ops stations run by the crew showing their own video content mixed with bugs under the video microscope. They ran it from sun down to the end of Saturday night and created a glowing beating heart in the centre of @cobargofolkfestival! Thanks to @eye_candy_portals for an awesome weekend of creativity and fun!

Bioluminescence @ Griffith Pioneer Park Museum

bioluminescence_1tcg0j / Uncategorized / 2024 /

September 12, 2024

Bioluminescence was invited to be a part of an event called “A Night at the Museum” at the amazing Griffith Pioneer Park Museum.

5 – 7 September 2024

We landed at the Griffith Pioneer Park Museum and kicked off with a ripper day building our content for Saturday night. With our task to make the ordinary extraordinary we set about exploring the super extraordinary Pioneer Park with not only an abundance of amazing Riverina bio-diversity but with the added bonus of astounding historical items, buildings and machinery! It wasn’t hard to capture unique videos! We edited in the Lumafusion app and made a bunch of clips. Next we learned GoVJ and tested out NDI streaming our GoVJ apps to the laptop and then to the projector. The day ended with a quick projector test on Myall Park Hall and the old Griffith Hospital buildings.

Whoa! What an awesome second day! Started by sampling sounds from around the museum including the sound of typewriters for our audio soundscapes and then it was straight into learning about projectors, the projection mapping process and having a go using HeavyM to map corners of the workshop space. Then it was setting up outside, talking safety, securing leads and trip hazards before getting stuck into projection mapping the two buildings. There was also time to have some practice with the @eye_candy_portals Beyard before the rain started and we had to pack up. But we are ready for the show!

That was just the best!! We are always in awe of the way young people jump in with both feet and step up when given the opportunity! These amazing eight young people absolutely smashed it and put on a show that had the audience engaged and enthralled with wonderful moments of participation when the audience became a part of the immersive audiovisual environment this crew built. Bioluminescence is always placed based and site specific and to see the @griffithpioneerparkmuseum transformed by these young creatives was a privilege! The photos and video gives you an idea of the energy and fun had tonight! Thanks to @eye_candy_portals and the other four artists who lit up other areas of the park and to Jason @bassling Richardson who invited us to Griffith along with the support of @westernriverinaarts. Bioluminescence is supported by the NSW Government through @creatensw

Bioluminescence @ Tabulam Trail of Light and Sound

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May 29, 2024

The Bioluminescence Project was invited to be a part of the Trail of Light and Sound in Tabulam put on by RealArtWorks.

23-25 May 2024

Workshop day one started with a full group of 11 young people from Tabulam and surrounds. One young person even travelled two hours to get here! Kicking off we looked at how to get better videos using composition techniques like the rule of thirds and turning on the grid on the cameras plus some tech speak about resolutions and frame rates – everyone loves slo-mo! Then we went to the banks of the mighty Clarence to capture the local environment and to maybe see somethings we’ve only walked past without noticing. Small flowers, lichen on an old log and the patterns made of dried mud on a track. After lunch we jumped into Lumafusion and edited what we shot. By the end of day one they had created over 70 short clips of their own content ready for the show on Saturday night! Bring on day two!! As always a big thanks to @eye_candy_portals for the boundless enthusiasm, endless experiments and taking a thousand pics every day! More behind the scenes stuff over on his Insta!

Day two! It’s always good when the young people come back, that means day one was fun! They air-dropped over 90 clips of content that they had made the day before so we jumped straight into video projection mapping. Because we are inside the hall and we could make it dark it was straight into mapping the space. Mapping takes team work! So with a guide close to the surface being mapped helping the computer operator. Lots of “the top left point nudge right up down” They rocked this and by dinner the hall was mapped! After pizza and chips (healthy food choices!!) it was adding our content and testing the smoke machine. We were ready for the big event!

Day Three – Showtime!! A final briefing over a dinner of pizza, talking safety, being good hosts and roles and responsibilities once the Bioluminescence Crew hi-vis shirts were on were all discussed. A final rehearsal and tech check, smoke machine on, a run down of how to use @eye_candy_portals arm mounted projector – The Beyard – and we were ready to go! We had our Ops Stations all set up including the ever popular video microscope and bugs, a live video feedback set up plus the two computers triggering the 90+ clips that were made and controlling the Totem and projection maps around the Tabulam Hall. And suddenly the crowd was on us filling the immersive audio-visual installation we had co-created in three days! Lots of questions, lots of awe, lots of questions and plenty of smiles and laughter as the residents of Tabulam saw their hall in a different light, completely transformed by their young people! What a blast! Thank you Tabulam and thank you #RealArtWorks for the invitation!

Bioluminescence @ Falling Leaf Festival Tumut

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April 27, 2024

With Autumn comes the 70th year of the Falling Leaf Festival in Tumut and Bioluminescence was invited to come along and light up the centre of town in the Connection Centre and ten local young people signed up to be a part of it!

24-26 April 2024

Hello Tumut! Bioluminescence has arrived for the @fallingleaffestivaltumut and we have had day one of our workshop. The weather is amazing, so after a quick digital camera primer and some tips on how to get better video the crew headed down to the park and the river to start our content creation. The falling leaves made for some spectacular video opportunities from slow-motion leaves falling in the breeze to the leaves floating down the river. Colours everywhere! We even sampled the sounds of the leaves crunching as we walked over them for the soundscape we will create for Friday night. The workshop location is in the heritage Brooklyn on Fitzroy in the dining lounge – luxury!!! We even got a mention in the local paper! Bring on day two

Day two at @fallingleaffestivaltumut kicked off with some projector tests over breakfast before heading to Brooklyn on Fitzroy for the day two workshop to learn about @resolume, MIDI controllers and how we can use all of the 78 video clips they made the previous day to build the show for Friday night. Then we jumped into the projection mapping process learning about projectors, throw distances, lumens and all of the cables needed to bring it together. We set up two @heavym_software stations and did some mapping practice while others created soundscapes using Samplr and audio field recordings. A quick bit of dinner before heading to site and starting the install. We managed to get all of the projectors installed, the mapping done and we were ready for the performance!

Day three at the @fallingleaffestivaltumut was show night! Starting with a crew dinner, a quick crew photo and then a whole bunch of running around to set up lights, get the tech ready at our two operations stations and then hiding the bluetooth speakers around the site and then checking to make sure the mapping from the previous night was still where it was meant to be, we were busy! As the sun went down and the gates opened everyone took their places and we delivered almost three hours of constantly morphing sound and vision across the amazing architecture of the Connection Centre in Tumut. Then the crowds came! There were plenty of sights and sounds for the audience to experience including @isaacliehne and his wrist mounted projector, the Beyard, the video microscope to look at things we found along the river and live sampling of people talking to add to the abstract soundscape filling the space. The ten young people rocked that space and blew minds with what they created and shared. Thank you to the @fallingleaffestivaltumut committee for hosting us, the people of Tumut for making us feel so welcome and the young people who gave up a few days of their holidays to be a part of Bioluminescence!

Bioluminescence @ the Twilight Picnic Bermagui

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March 17, 2024

Sculpture Bermagui invited Bioluminescence to be a part of their Twilight Picnic event on Saturday 16 March 2024 in Bermagui. We put out a call and ten young people answered from across the Eurobodalla and Bega Valley Shires.

14-16 March 2024

Day one of Bioluminescence at @sculpturebermagui kicked off with ten young people from across the Bega Valley coming along to create something special for the Twilight Picnic on Saturday night. We headed out to the Horseshoe Bay beach and headland to see what wonders of nature we could video. One of those surprises was a solo Fairy Penguin! We used iPads, underwater cameras and digital SLR\’s to capture the beautiful environment plus some of the amazing sculptures! Then it was back to @begavalleyshirelibrary in Bermagui to their new maker space to edit the footage and start building the content for our live show. Today is going to see us learn the tools and techniques of video projection mapping and then setting up for the big show on Saturday!

Day two of Bioluminescence at @sculpturebermagui started with a bit more content creation using @lumafusion.codm before learning the video projection mapping tools and techniques. We looked at @heavym_software and then using Syphon to pipe @resolume_ in and controlling it with an APC40 MKII via MIDI. After a feed of pizza from Bermagui Pizza we moved to Dickinson Park to start projection mapping for the big show Saturday!

Day three – Showtime! Another feed of pizza from Bermagui Pizza, installing the last bits of equipment, putting out lights and the laptops and the people started turning up. The worst bit for us is the final hour before sunset. We are ready to go but there is nothing to do after we\’ve checked everything for third time! Finally the lanterns were turned on and the projectors fired up. We lit up the @bermisurfclub and the trees behind it. We have the arm mounted projector The Beyard and a spot for the audience to come up and play with the video microscope. This was team work and co-creation at it\’s best. Each of the team had a go at each of the ops stations and kept the show going. The rain stayed away, the show ended and we packed up. Another awesome Bioluminescence! Thanks @sculpturebermagui for having us!