The world’s first live tattoo projection mapping event turned tattoos from static works into performance art, creating dazzling animations from inked body artworks.

Filmed in Lisbon by Oskar & Gaspar, the above video highlights the infinite possibilities of this approach, from filling in details and colors to completing partial tattoos or even animating them in living color.

Like the future tattoos from William Gibson’s book The Peripheral, the result can seem like organic behavior, with faces coming to life and snakes slithering across a body’s surface.

Remarkably, the entire film was made without any post-production – what you see as the viewer of the short film above is exactly what the audience saw on the day of the event. We still may be a ways away from embedded nanobot tattoos, but when we get there, this will be an excellent source of inspiration for the tattoo artists of the future.

Combining choreographed movement and projected abstractions, these works of performed art are visually stunning, creating effects and illusions far beyond the sum of their parts.

From its creators, Pixel, shown above, “is a dance show for 11 dancers in a virtual and living visual environement. A work on illusion combining energy and poetry, fiction and technical achievement, hip hop and circus. A show at the crossroads of arts and at the crossroads of Adrien M / Claire B’s and Mourad Merzouki’s universes.”

The idea of projecting onto moving performers is, however, not new – indeed, Klaus Obermaier has been using low-tech projectors and equipment to create equally amazing work for decades. Indeed, while speaking at INST-INT recently in Minneapolis, he joked that he would carry on using his decade-old laptop until it broke down.

Indeed, the lower-tech approach he takes relies heavily on the ability of each dancer to have complete control of their own movements, making their skill a critical part of each and every exhausting performance.

Obermaier has also engaged in other forms of public interactive projection art over the years, taking his productions off the stage and allowing passers by to interact with his work.