Christie projectors illuminate Festina Lente in Portugal

Visitors to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra (Portugal) discovered a new way to experience its mystical gardens and architecture, through an immersive nighttime show, Festina Lente, created by Vortice Dance Company. The project featured 12 Christie® HS Series laser projectors to illuminate the estate’s façades, trees, and lakes with vivid imagery inspired by classical literature and the search for self-knowledge.  

The experience transformed one of Portugal’s most iconic landmarks into a dynamic display of light, sound, and movement. Blending dance, video mapping, and storytelling, Festina Lente guided audiences through a series of projected scenes that reinterpreted passages from Virgil’s Aeneid and Camões’ Os Lusíadas—two epics central to Western and Portuguese literary traditions.

Founded in 2001 and based in Fátima, Vortice Dance Company is globally recognized for its innovative blend of dance and new technologies. Led by co-founders and artistic directors Cláudia Martins and Rafael Carriço, the company has performed in over 35 countries, earning awards like the UNESCO Grand Prix of Choreography.

To achieve this immersive experience, the company deployed a total of 12 Christie 1DLP laser projectors—four DWU23-HS and eight D20WU-HS—across multiple areas of the site. The units were installed throughout the gardens and near architectural elements, carefully integrated into the natural surroundings. Because of the outdoor setting, all projectors were housed in custom weatherproof enclosures, camouflaged among vegetation to preserve the visual harmony of the location. The system was implemented with long-standing support from Christie’s partner Total AV, which has collaborated with Vortice in several of its multimedia productions over the years.

“The projectors were positioned across several areas of Quinta da Regaleira, some a few meters from the projection surfaces due to restricted throw distances,” explained Rafael Carriço of Vortice. “In those cases, we used short-throw 0.84–1.02:1 zoom lenses to achieve the required image size and mapping precision within the available space.”

The mapped areas ranged from 4 to 40 meters (13 to 131 feet) in width and 4 to 16 meters (13 to 52 feet) in height, covering a variety of materials including stone façades, arches, towers, vegetation, rocks, and water surfaces. Each projection required customized warping and brightness adjustments to ensure consistency across these highly irregular and reflective surfaces. The content was rendered and optimized specifically for each mapped area to maintain pixel accuracy and visual coherence across all projection surfaces within Quinta da Regaleira.

“To address the complexity of the site’s architecture and natural relief, we carried out an extensive 3D mapping process,” added Carriço. “Each area was digitally modeled, and we performed manual fine-tuning and warping directly on-site using advanced projection mapping software. Brightness, color, and contrast were adjusted locally to ensure the imagery blended naturally with the environment.”

The projections were powered at native WUXGA (1920 × 1200) resolution, with multi-projector blends reaching up to 3840 × 1200 pixels, depending on the setup. For one of the main palace façades, two 23,000-lumen projectors were overlapped to deliver a combined brightness of 46,000 lumens. Synchronizing multiple projection points distributed across such a large and complex site required careful control to guarantee cohesive transitions and consistent timing between projection areas.

Operating outdoors presented additional challenges, from humidity and temperature fluctuations to the dense vegetation and uneven terrain of the heritage site. All units were installed inside robust, ventilated housings that protected them from environmental factors while maintaining stable thermal conditions. Regular monitoring and maintenance ensured continuous performance throughout the two-month exhibition.

“The Christie projectors performed exceptionally well,” said Carriço. “Their high brightness and reliability were essential to bring the visual narrative to life on complex surfaces like stone and foliage, while withstanding the demanding outdoor conditions of a heritage site. Overall, the solution proved robust and adapted well to the outdoor environment. The result met with visual precision and artistic integrity across the entire installation.”