Immersive photography in the heart of Turin

Maria Cecilia Chiappani

The project of the Gallerie d’Italia of Banca Intesa San Paolo arrives in the Piedmontese capital with a unicum in the Italian museum panorama: an underground space entirely dedicated to photography, with ample reference to its multimedia evolution

Create a completely new exhibition and experiential project in the historic Turin headquarters of Banca San Paolo which, unlike the other locations of the Intesa Group's Galleries of Italy, does not involve pictorial art but photography. In a multimedia and immersive mode that becomes a symbolic whole of light and shadow with the sumptuous spaces of Palazzo Turinetti. The challenge? Restructuring and transforming the underground floors of the building into the ideal container for this concept, optimally integrating design, AV technology and user-experience. Together with the client of the Gallerie d’Italia and the architects of the Michele De Lucchi - AMDL Circle studio, she was grasped by the great experience gained in this sector by the system integrators of Black Engineering. Supported throughout the duration of the project - from the tender to the creative development, up to the installation - by Exhibo's technical consultancy. Both for the component linked to the video projection, and for the audio system that accompanies the different spaces of the underground areas.

Paths of visual art

This is the genesis of a unique place in Italy, where photography and video art document images, events, and reflections on the issues of the moment. The new architecture of the underground spaces opens with a large staircase that takes visitors to the three levels intended for laboratories and exhibitions. On the first underground floor we find the classrooms, with modular spaces characterised by a large window overlooking the "Sala dei 300". The room that housed the bank's assemblies before the construction of the new skyscraper is located on the -2 floor and now houses temporary installations. The second underground floor is also home to the ticket office: a space for communication and meeting. From here, a "long sleeve" designed for classic photography leads to the rooms on the third underground floor dedicated to the Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive, always visible through a large window. Here, a large touchscreen panel allows you to consult the digitised images of the archive, in the "Archivio Vivo" installation, which thus becomes accessible to citizens and fans of historical shots. On the third underground floor there is also the real evolutionary point of the Turin Galleries: the immersive room of over 500 square metres equipped with 4K video projectors, designed to envelop visitors in the images and videos of the temporary itineraries curated by the director and great expert of photography Antonio Carloni.

Art and technology in the immersive basement

Guido Zanca, partner and CTO of Black Engineering, tells us about the structure of the AV project. “The gradual descent towards the underground floors literally deepens the theme of photography - he explains, almost symbolic of going into the womb of a dark room. Our proposal followed the thought of the Michele De Lucchi studio by reducing the formal language to a minimum, in order to never divert attention from the photographic subject.” Thanks to multimedia, therefore, photography becomes an object of formal and technical investigation, where installations and technologies merge at the service of the story, becoming almost invisible. "The wooden materials, cements or mirrors are integrated into the volumes and create a contemporary atmosphere - adds Zanca -. On the one hand, the area open to the public without a ticket engages people with the themes of photography, without barriers, to accompany them to the masterpieces of the Archives of the Galleries of Italy and, further down, to the temporary exhibitions. Indeed, the term 'exhibition' is now outdated in this surprising experiential evolution of art.”

What choices are there for video projection and audio?

The Gallerie d’Italia in Turin was officially inaugurated in March 2022. But the audio video integration project was born much earlier, from the teamwork between the System Integrators, the Exhibo distributor and the Panasonic supplier. Because such an ambitious, long-lasting immersive installation required a highly reliable and quality video projection system, in colorimetry as well as in the uniformity of the images, also given the need to pro-

ject content from very close positions to the walls. Specifically, the choice fell on the Panasonic PT-RCQ10 DLP model, a 10,000-lumen laser projector with reduced dimensions, used both in the immersive room and in the traditional parts of the Turin location. The ultra-short zero offset lens ET-DLE020, made it possible to create the video projections in rooms with reduced heights. Particularly important, in the selection of technologies to be adopted, the Smooth and Pixel Drive functionality of the Panasonic projector. "Through a lens placed in front of the sensor - explains Stefano Tura, Project Sales Manager of the Visual System division of Panasonic Italy -, each frame is projected twice, the human eye naturally perceives the superimposition as a single image, which is so very sharper and more defined.” The contribution of Exhibo and Panasonic, however, did not stop at the selection of technologies. Once the most suitable models were identified, in fact, we moved on to the testing phase: a first step, at the Black Engineering headquarters in Moncalieri (TO), allowed the designers to verify any problems of uniformity, focus and linearity of the image, resolved precisely by testing the performance of different optics and choosing a solution capable of guaranteeing an optimal and long-lasting result, as required by fixed installations. Equally important, the preliminary test on the combination of video projection and colour of the walls, which in the immersive room are not entirely white but in light grey tones. The second step - perhaps the most challenging but successfully overcome - was carried out together in the Gallerie d ’Italia in Milan, in the presence of the top management and the director of the Turin hub. The last phase of verification directly concerned the renovation site, with a month of demo space useful for evaluating the performance of the video projectors in the field and continuously. On the audio front, in the entrance / ticket office area of the museum and further down in the "Archivio Vivo" installation there are a total of 12 Kobra-KK102 speakers by K-array, powerful but very discreet solutions, and two Kommander-KA34 amplifiers. A valid sound system integrated respectively with an LED wall and a videowall from LG Electronics. Equally significant for the activities dedicated to the public, the Sennheiser microphone. The system integrators have in fact installed EW digital radio kit systems in three points of the Gallerie d'Italia: in the Turinetti Room, the protagonist of the "traditional" upper part of the building, in the Arena that welcomes visitors who descend the access stairway to the underground floors, and in the large immersive room.

The value of collaboration

“We have successfully completed a long and meticulous path - comments Zanca -, the result of the collaboration with Exhibo and the usual professionalism of its staff. Today our business continues with the ordinary and extraordinary maintenance of all technologies. Through a special museum management system, however, the people in charge of reception can manage the switching on, switching off and updating of the contents independently, simply through a tablet.” Andrea Gottardo, BizCom Manager of Exhibo's professional division, concludes the overview of this special installation. "It was a three-way project made up of constant relationships and communications between us, the technology producers and the integrator. The figure of the distributor, in commercial terms, was strategic above all for the procurement of material: guaranteeing the supply of all products on time, for the problems we all know, was not a simple mission. The clear and transparent relationship with all the players in the project allowed us to carry out the work without stumbling, despite the difficulties of the period.” 

Videoproiettori protagonisti

Concepita proprio per musei e parchi tematici, la serie PT-RCQ10 di Panasonic offre modelli da 10.000 o 8.000 lumen e immagini con colori naturali grazie alle tecnologie Rich Colour Harmoniser e Smooth Pixel Drive. La prima, sfrutta al massimo la luce rossa per una resa cromatica superiore, mentre il sistema digitale di elaborazione grafica della seconda funzionalità aumenta sensibilmente la nitidezza dei caratteri e smussa righe diagonali e curve, raggiungendo una risoluzione di output pari a 4.608.000 pixel (2.715 x 1.697). I videoproiettori supportano tutte le ottiche DLP a 1 chip di Panasonic, inclusa la novità zoom ultra shortthrow ET-DLE020, scelta anche per le Gallerie d’Italia di Torino. Il modello consente infatti una proiezione di alta qualità anche in spazi ristretti e riduce al minimo le ombre sullo schermo. Sempre in tema di affidabilità, essenziale nel settore degli eventi live e dell’entertainment, la serie PT-RCQ10 di Panasonic garantisce ottime prestazioni anche negli ambienti più difficili. Questo grazie al motore ottico laser a doppio drive, impermeabile alla polvere e testato per funzionare fino a 20.000 ore senza manutenzione.

Video projectors protagonists

Designed specifically for museums and theme parks, Panasonic's PT-RCQ10 series offers 10,000 or 8,000 lumen models and natural colour images thanks to Rich Colour Harmoniser and Smooth Pixel Drive technologies. The first takes full advantage of red light for superior colour rendering, while the digital graphics processing system of the second feature significantly increases the sharpness of characters and smooths diagonal and curved lines, reaching an output resolution of 4,608,000 pixels (2,715 x 1,697). The projectors support all Panasonic 1-chip DLP optics, including the new ultra-shortthrow zoom ET-DLE020, also chosen for the Italian Galleries in Turin. The model enables high-quality projection even in confined spaces and minimises shadows on the screen. Still on the subject of reliability, essential in the live events and entertainment sector, the PT-RCQ10 series from Panasonic guarantees excellent performance even in the most difficult environments. Thanks to the dual drive laser optical engine, which is dustproof and tested to run for up to 20,000 hours without maintenance.