Largest audio-visual art gallery of its kind opens in Prague
Prague’s recently opened Lumia Gallery offers the largest audio-visual light exhibition of its kind in Central Europe, featuring various installations such as a mirror labyrinth or a kaleidoscopic cinema. Its creators promise that the interactive light exhibits, that stretch over 800 square metres of space, will provide a unique experience by confusing visitors’ senses.
“Come play with light,” the newly opened gallery on Prague’s Celetná street tells its visitors, promising them a unique sensory experience. Its owner, Filip Kočík, who uses the pseudonym Feex, is one of several artists behind the interactive light installations.
“The exhibition starts with a room that tries to bring about the feeling of infinity. It’s filled with specially programmed lights and lots of mirrors. You get the feeling that you have an infinite view into all directions. We wanted people to feel like they were inside a space that has no barriers.”
Aside from Feex, VJ and video artist Michal Škorpík, light engineer Slávek Hrdina and the digital artist known as “Ati Sphere” all contributed to the gallery’s unique exhibits. They include a wall onto which visitors can draw pictures with torches.
“Each picture then lasts for about three minutes,” says Feex, who is eager to show his own creation in one of the many rooms that are featured within the second floor of an otherwise historic looking building near Prague’s Old Town Square.
“Here I created a statue that I call ‘creature’. It’s made out of mesh for catching mosquitos. It looks a bit like a prawn. I then layered various lights onto it to create a video mapping installation. The shades created by the shape of the sculpture also add to the overall picture.”
It’s not just light that visitors can shape and play with at the exhibition. One of the installations features three projections made to look like plants whose branches create specific sounds when touched. Visitors can thus create melodies by interacting with the shapes.
However, the most widely shared exhibit online is an eight-metre-long tunnel that features a large array of LED lights. Each of these lights can be programmed individually and thus create a wide range of unique pictures, says Feex shortly before entering another room this time filled with several circular shapes.
“They are filled with elastic canvases which visitors can touch and thus create sounds.”
The nature of the gallery allows for constant changes to the various installations featured inside. The owner of the spaces says that there are already plans to include more artists in the project, including young students from art schools.
Lumia Gallery, or the “museum of light” as it is sometimes referred to, is open daily to visitors of all ages, provided that they are not sensitive to light or have photosensitive epilepsy.
