Written by: Maddie Zitzmann, Marketing & New Business Manager
Inside a 100-year-old boiler room space beneath the Chelsea Market, is ARTECHOUSE, a 6,000-square-foot digital art immersion space. ARTECHOUSE is an experiential space that combines art and technology using projectors and sound technology to display large-scale installations produced by different artists. These massive art installations require a generous amount of space which involves numerous hanging projectors, meticulously hidden from sight. The exhibit first opened in Washington D.C. in 2017 and shortly after opened its second and third locations in Miami and New York in 2018 and 2019.
The first exhibit in the New York ARTECHOUSE featured Machine Hallucination, created by Turkish artist Refik Anadol. The exhibit was designed for visitors to reinterpret the idea of “space” and the unknown by taking data to make large scale installations of sound and light to create mesmerising visuals of New York City.
ARTECHOUSE exhibits change periodically, with this month’s exhibit featuring Magentaverse, a collaboration between ARTECHOUSE and Pantone to highlight the Pantone Colour of the Year, Viva Magenta. The colour is intentionally selected by Pantone: “Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, a pulsating colour whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration…. and welcomes anyone and everyone with the same verve for life and rebellious spirit. It is a colour that is audacious, full of wit and inclusive of all.”- Pantone.com.
We are entering a new era of immersive design, defined by a surge of new technologies that allow us to connect with art in new ways. The combination of technology, light, sound and space can be used to transport people into different realities. These immersive installations provide an ephemeral experience that immediately brings us into the here and now, which is sorely lacking in our distracted society. They allow us to imagine new possibilities. For me that possibility is an even more inspiring future in art, making me think about what could be and giving us an opportunity to be more in the moment.
