Every year tens of thousands of people flock to see the large-scale projections at Melbourne's White Night and Sydney's Vivid Festival.
Before either of those landmark events existed, there was the Gertrude Street Projection Festival.
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Gertrude Street Projection Festival celebrates 10 years
This year's festival looks to the future, having grown from eight sites to 36 and incorporating virtual reality.
On Friday night it celebrates its 10th opening, with larger projections than ever before, plus intimate and interactive artworks, virtual reality screenings and more.
Curator Fiona Hilary says punters can expect more varied and experimental artworks at the community-focused festival than at those bigger events.
"The Gertrude Street Projection Festival stands in its own right," she says. "It has enamoured the hearts and minds of artists for 10 years – and they keep coming back."
With the theme of the 2017 festival "unfurling futures", the 10-night event offers "a really beautiful streetscape of work that explores the future in so many different ways", she says.
There are 30 projections in all, plus a plethora of side events including the "artcade" project – old video arcade games that have been "pimped" by emerging artists; light sculptures from RMIT students; a virtual reality cinema; and an "artbox truck" from removalist company Man With a Van, featuring a rotating selection of weird and wonderful art and performance.
Thanks to technological advances, Gertrude Street Projection Festival has come a long way.
"Ten years ago people could just submit still images – a photo, perhaps – to be projected," says Hilary. "But over time equipment has improved and artists have stepped forward and … are testing and pushing to see what the technology is capable of. A lot of artists are drawn to projection as an art form for that reason."
Artists are using the animation software Tagtool, for instance, to create projections live and in the moment for the interactive event A Congregation of Light.
Art works run all along Gertrude Street from Carlton Gardens at Nicholson Street down to Burnside Cafe on the corner of Smith Street.
Each year the Atherton Gardens housing estate, on the corner of Gertrude and Brunswick streets, is featured in the festival – usually with a projection on the corner of Gertrude and Napier streets. For the first time this year the estate's western facade, facing Brunswick Street, will be lit up instead.
"It's bigger than we've done before," says Hilary. The piece, by Indigenous artist Jody Haines and Somali-Australian artist Susan Maco Forrester, brings their cultural heritage together "in a potent and beautiful way", she says.
"[But] my favourite way to see the festival is to just start a stroll and see where it gets you."
What to see
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Future is Now by Susan Maco Forrester and Jody Haines A large-scale projection on the western facade of Atherton Towers, corner of Brunswick and Gertrude streets.
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Visage Facade by Pierre Proske and Jobe Williams Watch your own face merge with someone else's before your very eyes. Tarlo & Graham, 202 Gertrude Street.
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Peering into Portholes by Megan Kennedy Take a peek through the windows of this shop front ... nothing is quite what it seems. Mud, 181 Gertrude Street.
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Time Travel by Jessie Stanley An intergalactic clock dial that changes as you move past. The Everleigh, 150 Gertrude Street.
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Virtual Reality cinema From 6pm to 8pm, Fridays to Sundays during the festival. Pods on Gertrude, 200 Gertrude Street.
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Official closing night party Send of the festivals' 10th anniversary in style at the festival hub with a selection of bands, DJs and projections. 8pm July 29 at The Catfish, 30 Gertrude Street. Free.
Gertrude Street Projection Festival runs nightly, 6pm to midnight, from July 21 to 30.
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