Friday, October 30, 2015
Disappear in a Forest of Lights in 'Epicenter'
The Creators Project: An abandoned factory becomes a living organism with only the use of lights and sound in Epicenter, a collaboration between Russian light artists Tundra and Sila Sveta. This project was a spontaneous idea that arose during work for a popular Moscow techno club temporarily housed in the Trekhgornaya Manufactury, a now empty space of urban decay described as "the most powerful textile enterprise of the Soviet Union” once upon a time.
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This installation, whilst only using lighting, sound, and the imagination of the participant, almost borders on devised theatre. By sticking a person in this factory with the lights and having each group's setting insert that viewer into a different climate, the viewer gets a sense that they are traveling through space and time simply by walking through this space in that time. The second another person joins you, you start to create a story around what you're seeing and feeling, and the audiosensory experience the people inside agree upon is something they won't forget, because they experienced it together. This person to person collaboration is at the heart of theatre, regardless of whether there are actors or a script. All you really need to exist in a new space is imagination and inspiration, both of which this installation provide. Calling the experience the epicenter of borderless creativity speaks not to the minds of the creators, but to the minds of the people inside, and how willing they are to immerse themselves in the sounds and sights in the warehouse.
I’ve always been attracted to site- specific art installations; it’s crazy to think about artists and designers seeing a place that most people would view as abandoned and worthless, and having a vision for what could be done to it to make it visually interactive. The idea described in the article of "transforming an artificial space into a world of living matter” is so incredibly beautiful. The pictures shown alone provide such a striking, other-worldly images, but I can’t even imagine how much more meaningful these installations must be combined with the sound effects associated with the natural elements the lighting is representing. I love the creepy association a participant might have in being in an art installation that, even though they are aware of its existence as an art piece, aren’t able to see the end of, and so they are literally completely immersed in the experience, as if they are surrounded by nature. The dynamic being explored here between urban and nature spaces is incredibly powerful, and I would love to see/ work on an artistic endeavor that attempts to create an experience similar to this.
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