Video scenography · Eurovision Song Contest

Eurovision 2021

A fractal spirit realm for Samanta Tīna’s “The Moon Is Rising”, built in three layers for the stage and the TV screen.

Year: 2021
Where: Rotterdam Ahoy, Netherlands
Our role: Visual concept, LED stage content, broadcast overlay
Discipline: Stage

Eurovision is the largest live music broadcast in the world — and every second of the stage has to work twice: for the hall, and for the millions watching through a camera. For Latvia’s entry we built an abstract spiritual realm that never points at any one religious image.

01A visitor from another world

We took Samanta’s outfit as the starting point. She played a visitor — a being not from our world — so the space around her had to feel alive, ancient and unfamiliar at once.

We chose fractals: mathematical structures that are visually complex and repeat themselves at every scale. Gold, green and violet grow, fold and breathe in time with the music, turning the LED walls and the floor into one living organism.

02Three layers, one picture

What the audience sees on the TV screen is composed of three layers. The first is video on the giant wall and floor screens, synced to the audio. The second is the camera feed, where the video scenography meets the stage and the performers.

The third is an overlay composed on top of the camera image — effects that exist only inside the broadcast, like a hologram floating between the singer and the viewer.