digital mask projectDédougou / Paris / Berlin

International Mask Festival, Dédougou, Burkina FasoFebruary 24th - March 2nd 2014

Masks in the imagination of thecontemporary man

The art of mask is the art of creating a character that one can become. This identification, permitted by one or several accessories, is often taking place during a performance combining danse, music and sculpture.

The mask culture is universal. In Europe, many traditions including masks are still alive, like the carnival in Venise or Bâle. Likewise, masks holds an important place in contemporary art.

The symbolic of the mask varies from one culture to another, from sacred in Africa to satirical in Commedia dell’arte and component of the catharsis in Greek theatre.Therefore what is the place of the mask in the imagination of the contemporary man?

Every two years, the international mask festival FESTIMA is organized in Dédougou, Burkina Faso. This event is the widest gathering of African masks in the world.

We want to take advantage of this festival to organize events in Paris, Berlin and Dédougou with the goal of making different cultures meet, from Africa to Europe, from traditional to contemporary. To that end, we have build a digital mask that fa-cilitates the process of creation and diffusion of masks.

Paris / Berlin: the mask in a contemporary context

In Paris and Berlin, events will occur allowing traditional African mask culture to meet contemporary art.

In order to give to the public elements about these themes, we will organise:

- Projections of videos captured during the FESTIMA about the masks of the festival- Lectures about traditional and contemporary masks- Exhibition of masks from contemporary artists or of art pieces inspired by masks- Performances involving masks

Mask creation workshops accessible to everyone (adults and children) will be held in order to enable the public to become actors of the mask culture. The public will draw their masks on paper that will be later scanned and projected on the digital mask. The images will be shared between the 3 cities so that masks created in one city will be projected in the others.

Dédougou: new tools for the mask culture

In Dédougou, a workshop accessible to everyone, similar to those of Paris and Ber-lin, will be organized. At the end of the festival, a jury will choose the best masks and prizes will be distributed.A digital mask will be installed in the festival and will project the masks created in Paris and Berlin during the workshops, thus representing France and Germany at the FESTIMA.

Our team will collect traditional masks by taking pictures of them and adapting them to be projected on the digital masks in Paris and Berlin. We will also collect testimonies of the artists through videos in order to capture the context of the masks.

After the FESTIMA : exploring the mask cultures

After the FESTIMA, lectures can be planned about the traditional mask culture, it’s place in contemporary art, the safeguard and diffusion of traditional mask cultures or the digital mask project.

The digital mask can be exhibited in other locations or lent to groups that would like to use it for artistic experimentation or cultural heritage diffusion.

our project: apply cutting edge technologies to masks

The beginings of the Internet have originated a real cultural revolution, multiplying the accessibility to art works.The concept of our mask is to leverage these technolo-gies to document and diffuse the mask culture.

a new way to create masks

We have designed and built a digital mask which surface allows the projection of videos : the motives are no longer fixed with painting or carving but animated.This additional dimension allows to experiment mask creation in new ways.During the FESTIMA, our mask will enable to :1. create new masks in a very simply way and for a low budget2. create «digital copies» of existing masks

By enabling to display an infinity of virtual masks on the digital mask, our system can help safeguarding and spreading the mask culture.

creating a mask during a workshop, a 3 steps process ...

1. the participant draws a mask with the help of a guide with the different zones of the mask

2. the drawing is captured via a camera or a scanner, edited on a computer, and sent through the internet to the location where it will be projected

3. the picture received is copied onto the projector’s internal memory and projected on the digital mask

The above diagram represents the full system to be implemented during the FESTIMA. The masks created during the workshops in Berlin, Paris and Dédougou will be projected in Berlin, Paris and Dédougou.

... extended to 3 countries

voleurs de jazz (détail)acrylique sur toile

1m x 1m30

What is a digital mask?

The digital mask is based on the autonomous pico projection technology. Videos recorded in the internal memory of the projector are projected on the mask-screen.

As masks cannot be considered without choreography, our mask is built for dance.

Our mask is made out of 3 main parts:

1 - an autonomous pico projector (with battery and internal memory)2 - a light-weight aluminium structure designed for dance3 - a mask-screen, made out of stretched white fabric to receive the projection

The FESTIMA: International Festival of Masks and Arts of Dédougou is the largest cultural event dedicated to defending and promoting the traditional culture of African mask.

Created in 1996, the 12th edition of FESTIMA will be held from February 24th to March 2nd 2014, it will be devoted to the celebra-tion of the 10th anniversary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The festival shows the living mask cultures of 45 societies, coming from Burkina Faso, Benin, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Mali, Togo and Se-negal. Thanks to the dances and parades of the FESTIMA, Dédou-gou is the main focus point for the diffusion of mask cultures on the African continent.

The FESTIMA has experienced a remarkable development over the past twelve years. It helped promoting cultural exchanges between different countries in Africa and Europe. Every 2 years, between 75 000 and 100 000 visitors and more than 850 holders of cultural heri-tage linked to the mask are taking part to the FESTIMA.

The FESTIMA is organized by the Association for the Protection of Masks (ASAMA), a non-profit association, accredited by UNESCO for advisory to the Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Its board includes administrators from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali.

for more details about the project, current events andvideos of the digital mask, visit the project’s websitemask.arnaudiprex.com

email: mask@arnaud.iprex.comtel France: +33 659663951tel Germany: +49 179 6307382

Les Masques NumériquesThéo Guerre-Canon3 Bd Jules peltier92210 Saint Cloud, France