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Ghost Ship – Visual Skin

The Flying Dutchman is back! Anchored in front of ARCAM Amsterdam Centre for Architecture and the Scheepvaartmuseum, the 17th century ghost ship rests motionless on the surface of the water. When the wind picks up, however, the ship comes to life. Its sails fill up and the vessel begins to sway back and forth. Across the water is a colourful replica of the famous Dutch East India Company ship, The Amsterdam. The cargo ship started its maiden voyage to Batavia in 1749, but was wrecked in a storm on the English Channel and, unfortunately, fell prey to looters. (For the full story, see the Dutch children’s comic book, Angst op de ‘Amsterdam’, from the Spike and Suzy series.)

Amsterdam and the Dutch maritime history is a golden combination that results in cargoes full of stories, say the creative brains behind Ghost Ship. Visual Skin, a young, four-man strong architecture collective from Romania, specializes in the creation of additional dimensions in existing locations, by using spectacular lighting designs and projections. Their ghost ship is not only a nocturnal mirage, but also a retro-futuristic hologram. As opposed to employing the slanted, transparent mirrors and high-tech video projectors used to digitally resurrect Tupac Shakur and Michael Jackson on stage during posthumous shows, the group turns to water curtains and old-fashioned stage lights.

Visual Skin has created the illusion of a 3D object with two intersecting planar projections, much like the method used to create trees in old video games. The very green and almost creepy apparition is beamed onto vertical planes of water that are perpendicular to each other. The wind plays an important role in achieving the desired ghostly and dreamy effect – when it picks up and blows against the streams of water, the image shakes and it is almost like we are looking at a magnetic field.