On the evening of 18 September, St. James’ Church opened its newly renovated roof to the public for a preview of ‘The Path of Light’, VISUALOVE’s immersive audiovisual journey through eight centuries of the building’s history. It was a first, one-night look at the language Prototyp Festival will now carry across the whole city: from 1–3 October, the same studio’s work spills out into the historic centre for the festival’s 12th edition, transforming Moravske namesti, namesti Svobody, Špilberk Castle and the New Town Hall into an open-air gallery of light, video mapping and interactive art.
On 18 September, visitors climbed into the roof of St. James’ Church to preview The Path of Light, an immersive audiovisual installation that turned one of Brno’s oldest buildings into one of its newest cultural landmarks, at least for one night. Created by Brno-based studio VISUALOVE, the piece traces the church’s history from its Romanesque foundations to its present-day restoration, using two large-scale holographic projections, a surround light show and spatial sound to carry visitors through eight centuries in a single ascent.
The journey ends in the tower room, where a video-mapping projection transforms the church’s spiral staircase into the centrepiece of the show; as the stairs appear to rotate under shifting light, a layered sound design closes out the experience. It is a technically demanding production, built around synchronised media servers and lighting control systems running in the church’s own control room, but the result, organisers say, is designed to feel intuitive, more like a journey than a light show.
A Prelude, Not a One-Off
What makes The Path of Light more than a standalone attraction is its timing. Organisers have framed the installation explicitly as a prelude to the Prototyp Festival 2026, the 12th edition of Brno’s annual festival of art, science and technology, running from 1 to 3 October. Having tested VISUALOVE’s audiovisual language on a single building, the festival is now preparing to scale the same idea up to the whole historic centre.
Under the banner “Prototyp in the City,” this year’s edition steps outside the festival’s usual venues — most recently the atmospheric former water reservoirs of Žlutý kopec — and spreads across public squares, historic buildings and streets instead. Organisers have announced around 20 installations threading through Moravske namesti, namesti Svobody, Špilberk Castle, the New Town Hall and other central locations, connected into a single self-guided route for visitors to explore on foot.
“Prototyp doesn’t just display art — it lets visitors navigate through it, become part of it, and feel it.” – Prototyp Festival
Part of a Bigger Autumn
The move into the city centre also folds Prototyp more tightly into Brno Creative Days, the wider umbrella under which the city now coordinates its autumn creative-industry events — six festivals this year, up from three in previous editions, running from 9 to 19 October. The city has backed the original three events, including Prototyp, with a combined subsidy in the millions of crowns, part of a stated ambition to position Brno as a creative and cultural hub in Central Europe.
What to Expect on the Route
- Light & video mapping — large-scale projections animating facades and public monuments along the route.
- Interactive artworks — installations responding to visitors’ presence and movement, continuing the “walk into the art” logic established at St. James’ Church.
- Historic backdrops — Špilberk Castle and the New Town Hall join public squares as exhibition spaces, pairing contemporary digital work with centuries-old architecture.
- A self-guided route — no tickets or guided tours for the city-centre leg; visitors move between installations at their own pace, after dark.
For a festival that built its reputation underground, in the “cathedral-like” water reservoirs that have hosted it since 2022, the move above ground and into the open city is a genuine departure. It is also, organisers suggest, a natural extension of what The Path of Light just demonstrated at St. James’: that Brno’s own historic fabric can carry this kind of work as well as any purpose-built venue.
For more information, see the Prototyp Festival and Brno Creative Days websites.
