Architectural Mapping Projection: Post1: WHAT IS IT?

I actually never heard of such a thing until a month or so ago, when my friend Christophe showed me some fabulous European videos on YouTube of the new "Sound and Light" shows of the 21st century. They have been staged in Europe for about 5 years now, mostly on public buildings for commemorations and anniversaries.

He had previously got me interested in working with video projections on buildings and recruited me to participate in the April 16, 2011 "Paint the Town Red Digital Art Festival", organized to benefit the Jefferson County Red Cross.

Before he turned me onto Architectural Mapping, I had already started brainstorming about among many other ideas a 3D (cross eyed)video of a moving Hypercubic Red Cross "a la Dali", and put together a short test movie in AfterEffects, starting from an old WW2 Red Cross patch I had in my collections. The chief organizer liked it and asked me to produce a final version to use as an emblem of the Paint the Town Red Festival. We are thinking of projecting it on a huge screen stretched high above the intersection of 23rd Street and 2nd Avenue North.

After Christophe showed me some of the stuff on you Tube, I was hooked, and wanted to try my hand at it. Here are just a few examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0XKmU5hF5s