Instronic carried out a media and experience makeover for Barcelona’s Phenomena Experience cinema, converting a single-purpose cinema into a multiformat venue.
The overhauled cinema’s renovation allows the Phenomena Experience to cater for screenings, concerts, presentations, brand events, and live broadcasts. Instronic began by mapping the visitor journey, arrival anticipation, social interaction, and took the screen itself into account in order to design each space in a way that evolves with every film, event, or occasion.
The technical infrastructure was then designed to serve the audience’s journey, working closely with interior design studio 4Cadires.
As the original architecture was never designed to be centred around media systems, Instronic adapted elements of the architecture itself to ensure that displays, lighting, and sound belong to the space, rather than simply being installed within it. The brief required the renovation to look and feel like cinema itself, drawing on the worlds from The Shining and Blade Runner, as well as the timeless elegant aesthetic of Art Deco theatres.
Ignasi Call, CEO, Instronic, explains: “For us, media architecture means the technology is designed with the space, not bolted on top of it. Space and media become a single composition and Phenomena is the perfect expression of that.”
Inside the hall, integrated media surfaces adapt content per firm or event, using a hybrid workflow of AI-assisted techniques, manual compositing, animation, and visual effects to bring classic movie posters to life within the space.
In the venue’s new cocktail bar, Nexus, media systems were used to create windows into a digital universe inspired by science-fiction classic, Blade Runner, while the outside analogue marquee has been reinterpreted through custom LED displays that use continuous ambient brightness adjustment, extending the experience into the street.
Broadcast capabilities have also been brought to the cinema, using three cameras and a centralised switch for multicamera recording, live switching, and real-time streaming across every screen in the venue.
Dual audio systems are used to keep Dolby Atmos dedicated to film usage, while a separate live circuit combines with a scalable wireless microphone and dedicated speaker system to cover everything from an on-stage conversation to a concert.
The theatre’s lighting runs on programmable moving head fixtures, with select units synchronised to the movement of the screen curtains.