The Danish Castle Centre

Museum Southeast Denmark (2014)

Situated in Vordingborg in south Zealand, The Danish Castle center is a medieval museum focused on one strong theme: Power.

This unfolds underground through seven installations with focus on the three "Waldemar" kings from the danish medieval times. With a vivid system of location sensors and touch screens carried by the visitors, they are engulfed in the complexity of power from back then to present time. In each story zone Dark Matters created a three to seven meter high backdrop of projected abstract visuals, complete with shock effects, rarity chambers and a view directly to heaven.

The first story, tells about 'The great alliance' between King Valdemar the Great and the Absalon clan. Our projections are the first thing to greet the audience while they walk down the stairs, with a 14 meter wide and 7 meter high stream of energy, blood, flesh and dirt, from the purgatory-life of the ordinary peasants to the infinite heights of heaven in the medieval churches.

The second story is about the balance between life and death, control and chaos, success and failure for the Kings in the middle ages. The story tells about how King Valdemar the Victorious, was kidnapped, had two wives die in the maternity bed and his son dying in a tragic accident. We decided to create a 7 meter wide curtain that balances in between stressy shocks and peacefull relief. Trough dungeons, deep forests and the madam's room.

In 1340 Valdemar Atterdag becomes king of Denmark, he was only 20 years old at the time, the kingdom is completely ruined by many years of anarchy and the story shows the methods and tools a king would use to reconquer his kingdom. As a rarity chamber, with a defined set of rules like a computer game, we slowly evolve an video mapped wall installation from bureaucracy over negotiations, to battle and finally assassination.

In the 1100s, monks from northern Italy brought the craftsmanship of clay bricks to Denmark. Valdemar the Great was one of the first to start building with bricks, and the new technology quickly became a symbol of power and wealth.

'Created for power' is a clay-brick-symphony, trough excavation of clay, moulding, burning and design of the architecture, timely and tight synchronised with the music from composer Rasmus Zwicki.

Troughout the middle ages, the Danish kings were constantly traveling from city to city and castle to castle, to maintain their power. The king would travel along with his men, the court, the fighters and bureaucrats, and each city would awake with hundreds of people coming from the areas around to work at the castles. We decided to follow the kings journey by flying over Denmark in an aerial view to follow the hundreds of peasents living around the castles as the king announces his arrival. And by his departure zoom in to follow him trough the dense forests and poor roads. The visualization was based on a map of danish churches from the middle age, populated with particles representing the peasants and the king's men.

In the other end of the iron sarcophagus we are presented for the same landscape as in the intro. The landscape is showing how time is passing through mapped organic textures and silent shadows of the once mighty and important buildings. Castles crumble as the seasons change and we are led out in the real castle terrain to experience the last remains of the biggest Castle in the medieval Denmark.

Credits
The project was made in collaboration with Carl-Emil Carlsen from Sixth Sensor.

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The Danish Castle Centre