“RE­FLEC­TIONS IN STONE” EX­HI­BI­TION AR­CHI­TEC­TURE AND MAGIC STA­GING

Founded in 1824, the Egyp­tian mu­seum in Turin is the only one out­side Cairo to be en­ti­rely de­di­cated to Egyp­tian art and cul­ture. It is the se­cond lar­gest col­lec­tion in the world and the fi­nest out­side Egypt. The sta­tuary in­cludes sphinxes, sar­co­phagi, sa­cri­fi­cial ta­bles, ar­chi­tec­tural ele­ments and, above all, large sta­tues of some of the major pha­raohs and dei­ties: the kings Tuth­mosis III, Amen­hotep II, Tu­tank­hamon, Ho­remheb, Ramses II, Sethi II and the gods Ptah, Amon, Hathor and Sek­hmet (of whom there are 21 sta­tues). These sta­tues were tra­di­tio­nally housed in two rooms on the ground floor but in Fe­bruary 2006 they were given an en­ti­rely new set­ting. The “Re­flec­tions in stone” ex­hi­bi­tion de­si­gned by award-win­ning ar­chi­tect and film sce­no­gra­pher, Dante Fer­retti pro­vided the ideal op­por­tu­nity for their move. Fer­retti used light to cap­ture and re­veal the true spirit of the sta­tues and high­light their par­ti­cu­la­ri­ties.

THE EX­PE­RI­ENCE

A po­werful air of mys­tery, al­most a re­ve­ren­tial fear, en­ve­lops the vi­sitor con­fronted with these cha­ris­matic Egyp­tian ar­te­facts. A re­newed sa­cred­ness of the place per­vades the rooms, and the light that sur­rounds the sta­tues creates re­flec­tions de­vised to eli­mi­nate the space in which they are con­tained, heigh­te­ning the ef­fect of their pla­sti­city. Lit by spe­ci­ally moulded pro­jec­tors hidden be­hind the false cei­ling, the par­ti­cular de­tails of each statue emerge, from the dif­fe­rent stones used to the re­fined and po­werful mo­del­ling of the faces and bo­dies. Mir­rored walls enable the vi­sitor to see the sta­tues in the round, and the spa­cious­ness de­voted to each one helps in­di­vi­dua­lise and de­tach them fur­ther from their con­fines. Up­dated room cards and an at­mo­s­pheric sound track com­plete the new dis­play. The play of light and shade, mul­ti­plied by the mir­rors, the ligh­ting in­di­vi­dually tai­lored for each statue, the slow mo­ving images on the walls and the sound ef­fects to­gether pro­duce a time­less and highly sug­ge­s­tive journey through this “noble as­sembly of gods and kings” that is a sub­lime ex­pres­sion of Egyp­tian art.

TECH­NO­LOGY

The ligh­ting was created to spe­cial ef­fect using 250 Le Per­ro­quet spot-lamp pro­jec­tors and an as­so­cia­tion
bet­ween the Piano De­sign studio and iGuz­zini. Using LED tech­no­logy the pro­jector is equipped with a set of three in­ter­chan­ge­able dia­phragms in­serted into the sup­port. This al­lows cones of light of dif­fe­rent
widths to be se­lected. There is also a spe­cial ad­just­able
dia­phragm that creates geo­me­trical shapes. This type of pro­jector has a 330° ro­ta­tion on the ho­ri­zontal axis and a 190° on the ver­tical one, and LED op­tics with narrow (α 12°) or me­dium (α 25°) band pla­stic lenses. The tracking is se­cured with screw-in me­cha­nical blocks, High re­so­lu­tion mo­no­chrome 3 and 12 LED cir­cuit mo­dels were used in shades of warm white (3100K) and neu­tral white (4200K).