Breaking Boundaries at Voodoo Village 2023

rene.studio experimented with light, shape, and motion to shatter any distance between the virtual and physical worlds at Voodoo Village 2023.

For this year’s Voodoo Village electronic music festival in Belgium, organisers approached rene.studio to create a stage and concept design deviating from any conventional approach to live performance. The goal from the outset was to push creative boundaries and arrive at a one-of-a-kind experience.

Creative Director Rene Van Dijk began with a question—how could the creative team blend genuine lighting sources seamlessly with artificial, digital sources in real-time to give the impression of continuity between the physical and virtual? To accomplish this, they used a semi-transparent LED screen with four movable heads positioned behind and attached in pairs to trusses; they could then be repositioned along the X and Y axes by a motor system.

The setup offered a lot of freedom and allowed the team to keep their moving headlights consistently aligned with the virtual ones. They could also interact with the visuals by casting shadows, colliding with objects, and engaging with particle systems. They built custom applications using vvvv, which took in various signals from light desks and motors before filtering and transmitting them to Notch.

Professionals within the live events industry responded overwhelmingly positively, appreciating the complexity and technical finesse required to synchronise real-time visuals with motors and moving lights. Moreover, the rene.studio team were, in Van Dijk’s words, “profoundly satisfied” with the results, which balanced technical sophistication with accessibility and emotional resonance.