GiO Bourgeois · France & international · more than 25 years of practice
Immersive scenography refers to a setup that surrounds the audience with a complete sensory environment, visual, sonic, sometimes interactive, instead of placing them in front of a stage. Video mapping, also known as projection mapping, is its most widespread technique: projecting animated content onto non-flat surfaces, calibrated to their real geometry, to create illusions and relief effects. AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality) and XR (extended reality) are other forms of the same continuum.
I design and produce immersive scenography for events, festivals, heritage sites and live performance. Setups where the audience stops observing and starts inhabiting the space, and where technology disappears behind sensation.
The most common form of this work is video mapping, also called projection mapping: projecting animated content onto non-flat surfaces, monument façades, stage volumes, interiors, while precisely accounting for their real geometry. But it is not the only one. Depending on the venue, the audience and the intent, a project may call on augmented reality, virtual reality, sensors that make the setup interactive, or a mobile app that extends the experience beyond the night itself.
These disciplines do not work in silos. A projected monument can become a VR space. An AR layer can sit on top of a mapping show on the audience’s phones. A motion sensor can turn the audience into performers. Since 2000, I have been working on this continuity, from narrative design to on-site calibration, in France and internationally.
What sets my approach to immersive work apart is a refusal to keep disciplines separate. A video mapping show can include an AR layer visible from the audience’s smartphones. A VR experience can be designed to be projected in large format afterwards. An interactive mobile app can control elements of a live mapping in real time.
These connections are not technical gimmicks: they serve an intention, multiplying the levels of experience for audiences with different profiles, in the same space, at the same moment. The spectator standing back experiences the mapping. The one who takes out a phone sees an AR layer. The one wearing a headset lives a third experience. One project, three depths of immersion.
It is also an answer to a question clients ask more and more: how do you create an experience that lives beyond the event? The mapping show lasts one night. The AR app lives on phones. The VR can be shown again. Generative content can be updated. Immersive work becomes an ecosystem.
For more than 25 years, I have been building this ecosystem, project by project, discipline by discipline, audience by audience. With one constant conviction: technology is only a tool. Emotion is the destination.
For which projects
Monumental heritage
Castles, cathedrals, museums, archaeological sites: monumental mapping tells the story of a place, lights it up during festivals and creates high-impact cultural events.
Festivals & live shows
Stage video mapping and live architectural projection turn stages and spaces into dynamic visual environments synchronised with the music.
Corporate events & brand launches
Product launches, company evenings, institutional presentations: corporate video mapping creates memorable, high-impact moments.
Immersive installations & exhibitions
I combine video mapping, sensors, augmented reality and mobile apps into total experiences where the audience becomes the actor.
Stage scenography
Operas, theatres, concerts, hybrid shows: digital scenography through video mapping offers narrative flexibility and total visual plasticity.
The forms of immersive scenography
There is no single definition of immersive work: there is a continuous spectrum, from architectural projection to full virtual reality, by way of augmented reality and mixed reality. In my practice, these forms coexist and combine within the same project.
Form 1
Video Mapping & Immersive Projection
Projecting animated content onto architectural surfaces (façades, volumes, stages) is the most physical and collective form of immersion. The audience is surrounded without wearing anything on their head. The building becomes a screen. The space becomes a story.
Monumental mapping on heritage sites, indoor 360° projection, floor, walls and ceiling, all the way to total immersion through projection in an enclosed space. It has been my core practice since 2000, and it remains the heart of my work.
MadMapper · Resolume · TouchDesigner · Media servers · ComfyUI
Form 2
Interactive Scenography & Sensors
Immersion becomes participatory when the audience can influence the experience in real time: through movement, voice, touch or presence. I develop capture systems (cameras, Kinect, LiDAR, custom controllers) that turn spectators into performers.
Exhibition installations, interactive stages, hybrid performances: interactive scenography dissolves the boundary between performance and participation.
Domes and 360° panoramas physically surround the viewer: the image has no edges, it fills the entire field of vision, even overhead. No headset, no individual screen: the group shares the same experience at the same moment, seated or lying beneath the dome.
I design and project fulldome content for touring inflatable domes, planetariums and panoramic venues: sky and science, heritage, original creation. Everything depends on mastering spherical projection, fisheye or equirectangular masters, calibration, warping and projector blending, so that the dome reads as one single continuous image.
Immersion in your pocket. Mobile apps (iOS/Android) and WebXR experiences that extend the physical experience to each spectator’s smartphone, frictionless, with no download, straight in the browser.
A mapped façade that reveals an AR layer. A monument that tells its story through a phone screen. The experience continues beyond the event.
Virtual reality immerses the user in a fully digital environment through a headset (HMD). Immersion is total: physical reality disappears, replaced by a world built pixel by pixel.
I design VR experiences for cultural outreach, training, events and digital art: environments where storytelling takes precedence over technological showcase. A successful VR experience makes you forget the headset.
Augmented reality overlays virtual elements (3D, animations, data) on the real environment, viewed through a smartphone, a tablet or smart glasses.
I develop AR apps to extend mapping shows (the audience sees an extra layer through their phone), to showcase heritage (reconstructions of monuments), or for interactive event setups. My app Virtual Monument Show is a direct example of this practice.
Unity · ARKit · ARCore · WebAR · Vuforia
Form 7
Mixed Reality & XR (MR / Extended Reality)
Mixed reality (MR) and extended reality (XR) describe the continuum between the real and the virtual world: holograms anchored in physical space, hybrid environments where real and digital coexist and interact.
With devices such as HoloLens, Apple Vision Pro or Magic Leap, I create experiences where virtual elements inhabit real space with total spatial precision. A natural extension of scenography.
HoloLens · Apple Vision Pro · Magic Leap · WebXR · Spatial