Over 60,000 people celebrated the 2022 edition of Spotlight, the visual art festival in Bucharest

Sunday, October 16 saw the end of the sixth edition of Spotlight, the Bucharest festival which, for three days, completely transformed Calea Victoriei and the Arch of Triumph through new media art.

Entitled “Made in RO”, this year’s edition focused exclusively on the creations of Romanian artists and promoted installations on the theme of sustainability, VR and artificial intelligence projects, but also video mapping shows that activated emblematic buildings and monuments for the history of Romania. Calea Victoriei became the main destination of the October 14-16 weekend in Bucharest with the events of the last pedestrian weekend Open Streets and the Spotlight #6 shows.

On Friday evening, 15,000 Bucharest residents and tourists came to the opening of Spotlight – Made in RO on the pedestrian route between the Military Circle and the Romanian Athenaeum. Between October 15 and 16, the daytime artistic program of Open Streets was continued in the evening by the multimedia experience offered by Spotlight artists. On Saturday and Sunday evening, Calea Victoriei became full with more than 45,000 spectators who came to discover the Spotlight route.

Among the most visited installations of the edition, “Kaleidoscope” reconstructed the universe of a large-scale kaleidoscope and invited viewers to step inside and experiment with the illusion of color and light.

The impressive video mapping installation “Human Head” offered, in addition to a fascinating visual spectacle, an interactive experience with an artificial intelligence character capable of synthesizing information from the Internet and answering questions posed by viewers.

The virtual reality creatures “Folklore Beasts” attracted many users who scanned the installation’s QR code with their phone and activated the characters created by Romanian artists during XR Month. The large-scale installation “Lumi.Nativ”, the light installation “Discoball” and the “Guardian” created the perfect backdrops for selfies and pictures.

Featured in the Spotlight program, the installations “Particle Composer”, “Miniplex House of Light” and “Manifesto for Balance” explored themes of sustainability and ecology in highly creative ways. This year’s video mapping projections were hosted by the iconic buildings on Calea Victoriei, Cercul Militar, Odeon Theater and Novotel Hotel. For the first time at Spotlight, the festival audience saw the statues on Calea Victoriei activated by video mapping.

On the last day of the festival, the Spotlight map expanded with a second location – the Arch of Triumph. On October 16, 100 years after the inauguration of the emblematic monument, the Arch of Triumph came to life through a video mapping projection as part of the “CentenARC” anniversary event, marking the centennial anniversary of the Romanian Royal House’s coronation.