Ultracool responsive LED cube is on view nightly through Sunday in DUMBO (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Tobacco Warehouse
38 Water St., DUMBO
Through October 23, free, 5:00 – 9:00 pm
www.thecreatorsproject.com
origin slideshow
At last year’s inaugural Creators Project event at Milk Studios, the UK collective United Visual Artists presented two works, “Hereafter” and “Triptych,” that were among the coolest of the show. For this year’s two-day Creators Project festival in DUMBO, they came up with something even better, one of the coolest things ever. Situated in Tobacco Warehouse on Water St. — and extended through Sunday night — “Origin” is an intoxicating collaboration between UVA and innovative British sound artist Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), a giant cube, ten meters by ten meters, with twenty-five two-meter squares on each side and in between, forming a mesmerizing lattice grid that comes alive with LED lights that form dazzling patterns in red, white, and blue. Accompanied by a soundtrack of experimental noise and human dialogue, “Origin” brightens up the night sky with chasing lights that zoom around the structure at changing rates of speed, reacting to visitors via infrared cameras as men, women, and children walk through the piece or lie down on their backs for a rather dizzying, delightful experience. “‘Origin’ is alive, and it’s moody,” UVA explains. “It will stay in a state of calm, soothing bliss for fifteen minutes at a time, lulling its occupants into a sense of false security. Then, seemingly on a whim, it will take exception to their behaviour; its metaphorical tail will start to lash back and forth like a cat’s, until it explodes into an angry tantrum that rises to a terrifying crescendo. Then it will again seemingly calm down.” Evoking such well-known objects as the spaceship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind , the Borg cube from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey — with some psychedelic laser Floyd thrown in — “Origin” will take you on an inner and outer journey that will go as far as you’re willing to allow it.