In the dying hours Monday 17th August 2009, Quadratura set out into the dark streets of London for an entirely different kind of public performance that would see graffiti artists Banksy and codefc, as unwitting collaborators.

Using PatchBox, our custom video mapping software, we were able to literally draw layers of video onto the existing architecture without worrying too much about projector placement.  We then used PaintBox and a graphics tablet to mask out and colour in, the graffiti; all in real-time.

“Our aim is not to comment on the legality of graffiti; we respect the artists involved and wanted to enhance and animate these existing works using the tools and techniques at our disposal to create a completely different vision and play around with their original meaning”, says Alex May.

“We explored the ideas of reactivating static street art in our ‘Statues Alive’ event last year, where familiarity with art that you perhaps pass by every day lessens its impact. By using video projection we can show these works in a new way and re-energise them”, adds Martin A. Smith.

Signing off the night’s activities, Quadratura took the opportunity to project the somewhat ambiguous statement “No Graffiti/No Problems” on the ‘ungraffitiable’ wall under the Westway on Portobello Road.

Video to follow later today.

Utilising our unique video mapping system we will be visiting six undisclosed locations and creating a series of video compositions projected onto the unsuspecting architecture.

Speed is all important if we’re to succeed without drawing too much attention to ourselves, and this is where our software tools come into their own, being able to map video to the architecture within seconds, combined with drawing light freehand with a graphics tablet.

We’ll be posting up images and video later in the week but you can follow our progress live on Twitter and see the works as we complete them between 10pm and 2am.