This mind-blowing light show proves Bucharest is the capital city of awesome

Bucharest, Romania's capital, turned 555 years old in September and threw a massive party to celebrate. There was dancing. There was music. There was general merriment. There was also a freakin' amazing light show.

The city is home to one of the largest buildings in the world, the Palace of Parliament, and someone must have figured — hey, we should do something crazy with this thing. So Bucharest General Municipality brought together five teams of artists from France, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Romania to project lights all over that thing's 20,000-square-meter facade.

And boom.

(Daniel Robert Dinu/Facebook)

Together, the teams created a 23-minute multimedia extravaganza called "iMapp Bucharest 555" using a projection technology called "video mapping," which can turn almost any irregularly shaped object into a display screen. (This sounds pretty vague, but you'll understand it when you see the videos.)

Each team contributed a show lasting exactly five minutes and 55 seconds, and each one has its own unique aesthetic flavor, but they all use light and sound to play off the architectural contours of the building, creating illusions, scenes, and stories that'll entrance you. 

Here they are, in order of appearance

Maxin10sity (Hungary)

The Macula (Czech Republic)

BUCUR555 from the macula on Vimeo.

Damien Fontaine (France)

Les Alteiers Nomad (Romania)

Siedemzero (Poland)

The Biggest VideoMapping Ever by SIEDEMZERO™ from Pawel Piotr Przybyl on Vimeo.