Welcome to the Pleasure Dome

Lighting plays a key role in Moment Factory’s monumental multimedia experience at Dôme des Invalides in Paris.

AURA Invalides at Dôme des Invalides in Paris marks a new stage in Moment Factory’s history as a multidisciplinary studio dedicated to crafting innovative multimedia experiences through bold creativity, high-tech prowess and precision lighting. The practice’s immersive 50-minute experience combines lighting with video mapping, special effects, orchestral music and sound design to celebrate the architectural and historical heritage of one of the French capital’s most iconic monuments.

Captivated by the AURA experience at Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal in Canada, cultural operator Cultival asked Moment Factory to create the first AURA experience in France.

Les Invalides, whose gilded dome has brightened the Paris skyline for centuries, was the natural choice. To achieve this project, Cultival also turned to its longstanding partner, Musée de l’Armée –Hôtel national des Invalides.

The lasers soar in the dome and cross to create an ephemeral yet monumental lattice-like structure in the space.

Designed by Moment Factory and produced by Cultival, in partnership with Musée de l’Armée, the experience is the result of a process of research and collaboration, undertaken by teams specialising in heritage enhancement and the digital arts.

As night falls, Dôme des Invalides comes alive with the combined magic of light, orchestral music, and video-mapping, revealing its stately beauty and rich heritage.

Over a 50-minute span, visitors are invited to partake in a sensory nighttime exploration. Guided by light, they wander through Dôme des Invalides and its six chapels, where the previously unseen gradually comes into view.

As visitors pursue their exploration, they become attuned to their surroundings.

The experience consists of three acts, each portraying a distinct facet of this particular landmark: its construction, the memories it harbours, and its power to inspire.

The technical challenge was huge. At more than 90 metres high, the building is topped by a dome whose smallest diameter is 30 metres.

Visitors were invited to partake in a sensory nighttime exploration. Guided by light, they wander through the church and its six chapels, where the previously unseen gradually comes into view.

In all, more than 45 million pixels were mapped onto a 3,500-square-metre surface.

One of the building’s distinctive features is a reverberation time that spans nearly 10 seconds, a result of its architectural configuration.

To cope with this, the team employed a sound-spatialising technique that involves localising sound with high precision.

Another challenge was to blend technology seamlessly into the space. As the building is a protected historic monument, the equipment had to be installed without altering the site’s architectural integrity.

The technical team produced a drone-enabled architectural scan, which it then transcribed into virtual reality, in the form of a 3D model, to produce a technical design that encompassed all of the site’s specific features.

The team’s artistic preference was to reveal the spirit of the place, comprising its architectural beauty, the memory with which it resonates, and the symbolism it conveys.

Lighting played a key role. Colour-changing LED floods and spots, all under the central control system, transformed the stonework with powerful saturated washes of colour, while banks of cool-white lasers provided a stark, angular contrast to the classical 17th century interior.

They soar in the dome and cross to create an ephemeral yet monumental lattice-like structure in the space.

AURA joins Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, Basilique NotreDame de Montréal and Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims in the unique pantheon of Moment Factory projects which have taken visual storytelling to unprecedented levels of sophistication.