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From Canada to Rwanda, Maxime Touroute transforms cities with video mapping for Novembre Numérique
Published on 31 October 2025
French digital artist and engineer Maxime Touroute develops video mapping (video fresco)interactive works, blending audience participation, live performance and technological innovation. As part of Novembre Numérique 2025, he is programmed in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bahrain and Canada with his installations Painting Mirror and Let's Draw. He tells us about his projects, the video mapping technique and the importance of his multidisciplinary experiences.
You're in demand at the French cultural network's programs abroad for November Numérique 2025. Video mapping is at the heart of these invitations. Could you explain what this technique consists of and how you came to adopt this practice?
I started doing video mapping during Lyon's Fête des Lumières, off-site in the garden of a bar, as I wasn't part of the programming. Thanks to my engineering training, I was also able to work at Millumin, a software program for creating many forms of interactive / digital projects; including video-mappings. This allowed me to explore this practice from the point of view of creative tools. When the opportunity arose to produce a first piece, I took the plunge.
For me, video mapping means using the video projector as an artistic tool in its own right, and above all not just projecting slides onto a screen. It means projecting onto buildings, objects and smoke, and considering the projector as a source of light, rather than just a tool for broadcasting a video or image. To this is often added a monumental and collective dimension: we design works that interact with a crowd, a large number of people simultaneously.
So we understand that the digital enhancement of heritage resonates strongly with videomapping. Do you see any links between your work and artificial intelligence (AI), which is the other focus of the 2025 edition of Novembre Numérique?
Yes, I see several very concrete links between my work and artificial intelligence. The first is Painting Mirror, a work I co-created in which AI is at the heart of the subject. The image of the audience is captured and projected, but transformed in the style of existing painters or illustrators thanks to AI. This creates a framework for talking about AI, demystifying it, and showing that it's not always as "intelligent" as we think: it still has trouble reproducing artists' sensibilities.
As a software engineer, I also integrate AI into creative processes. It helps us remove technical constraints, reduce costs and speed up artistic iteration. This allows us to explore more freely, but also to make certain technologies accessible to other artists or the general public. For example, with Revy, an augmented reality software born of dance and Augmented Reality creations with choreographer Natacha Paquignon, AI enabled us to imagine a creative process that was very easy to get to grips with. Thanks to this, we've been able to create augmented reality content with high school students in France, judokas in Brazil and, soon, dancers in Canada without any technological experience.
Finally, there's a third axis, more art-science, which I'm currently working on with choreographer Natacha Paquignon: a show called Latency. The idea is to create a dialogue between dance and artificial intelligence. Movement would become the "prompt"(generative instruction: instruction intended for an artificial intelligence) and the AI would be able to respond through movement.
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In Kigali, at the invitation of the Institut français du Rwanda, a video mapping will be deployed in a popular district of the city. In Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, you will present the interactive videomappings Painting Mirror and Let's Draw. How did these projects come about? Are you approached with a specific idea, or do you build each project according to context and possibilities?
Generally, I'm first contacted with the desire to present Painting Mirror or Let's Draw, then there's a phase of investigation and field scouting on my end. I try to understand the local context, the themes of the event, whether it fits in with existing programming, and above all where it would be relevant to locate the work.
It's essential to understand which is the best place artistically and technically to reach the maximum audience. This scouting work is essential, and sometimes the answers to these questions lead me not to do video mapping, but to imagine another form of scenography.
My projects remain very flexible, which allows me to integrate local artists into the creative process. For example, with Let's Draw, I always try to get local illustrators or street artists to do drawing performances with us. And for Painting Mirror, I'm looking to incorporate either local museum collections or visual creations by local artists.
Working remotely also meets an ecological challenge. We want to get away from the "one shot" format where we travel, do a mapping and leave again. When the project is short or purely event-driven, we prefer to broadcast remotely if it's relevant.
You won't always be able to be on site. How do you work and distribute your video mapping projects remotely?
With my collective, we started working remotely as early as the Covid period, notably with the Alliance Française in Peru and the French Institute in Denmark. But this represented a real challenge, because our video mappings are interactive: the content isn't created in advance, it's the audiences who create live within the framework we set up. So we can't simply send a video and let a technical team project it.
To make this interaction possible remotely, we've developed our own software, designed to be accessible and usable by anyone on site. In concrete terms, we send the software, a back-office tool and a precise procedure, and the local team can control the projection with our remote support.
That said, we retain control of the scenography: the day before the event, our partners install the video projector, and we do all the set-up, testing, visual positioning, color and theme choices remotely. Once the framework has been established, the audience creates live, and our role is above all to ensure that this framework remains stable during the event. We also leave a margin of freedom to local organizers, and even to the public in certain cases.
Working remotely also meets an ecological challenge. We want to get away from the "one shot" format where we travel, do a mapping and leave again. When the project is short or purely event-driven, we prefer to broadcast remotely if it makes sense. On the other hand, if the context allows us to meet local communities, co-create and involve local artists, then we travel.
Your work isn't limited to video mapping: you also explore live performance, dance and immersive theater. What do these multidisciplinary experiences bring to your approach to digital creation? How do these different worlds interact in your projects?
I create my own works and also join dance and theater teams. It's my core business to join artistic teams wishing to explore creation with technology. I bring technical expertise and, above all, a technical-creative eye to the table, aware of the possibilities and constraints, often positioning myself between the role of designer and co-author, depending on the implications. In these projects, software becomes a vehicle for sharing. For example, the software Live Maker that we developed for Let's Draw, which allows people to interact with their phones, becomes an excuse to work with director and actor Eva Carmen Jarriau on her next project, Le Motel des destins croisés. In this case, audiences are encouraged to move around the stage and perform actions that play on the staging. The software becomes a pretext for working together, a way of breaking the ice between different creative practices in France and abroad.
As with the projects built as part of Novembre Numérique, you regularly collaborate with the French cultural network abroad. What role has it played in your international development, and how do these experiences feed into your work?
The French cultural network abroad has played an essential role in my international development. Very often, it's thanks to the opportunities offered by the French Institutes that I've been able to distribute a work for the first time in a country. But their support isn't limited to distribution: when I go somewhere for personal reasons, I can contact them, introduce myself as an artist, and their teams help me to understand the local ecosystem. This network enables us to plant seeds in different territories, which will in turn lead to collaborations. For example, we're starting a tour of Canada, supported by the Institut français Paris and the Institut français du Canada, as part of Novembre Numérique, but also by the Office franco-québécois pour la jeunesse. It was made possible by an invitation from the Toronto Consulate last year and my meetings with local partners.
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