Interactive art pioneers Anti VJ give us ‘Omicron’
‘Omicron’ not only marks Anti VJ’s first permanent mapping installation but also demonstrates the need (long overdue) for institutions to embrace on a non-temporary basis, such artwork as complementary to their interior or exterior architecture. In fact, works like this one have the ability to actually improve some buildings, allowing their intricate, intelligently designed components to come alive again.
Centennial Hall (see left for an exterior view) also known as Hala Stulecia in Wroclaw, was designed by Max Berg and was constructed between 1911 – 1913. At the time it was the largest reinforced structure in the world, second in size only to the Pantheon built in Rome eighteen centuries earlier. Omicron’s audiovisual narrative takes shape on the ceiling of the building – see the below video.
O (Omicron) from Romain Tardy (AntiVJ) on Vimeo.
Omicron not only shows Anti VJ’s superiorly artistic hand with design, technology and audiovisual installations, as well as their capabilities for increasing the public’s experience of such in an incredibly immersive way, but also poses questions and instigates conversations about interactive art’s position in public art and it’s (sometimes neglected) ability to wow audiences much more than static art.
The piece was designed around the idea of timelessness in architecture and poses ideas about what the future might’ve meant throughout the 20th century. Anti VJ used Fritz Lang’s film, Metropolis and the utopian projects of Archigram to confront the various different visions of the future at different times. Directors Romain Tardy & Thomas Vaquié wanted to create a vision of the future that relayed no references to any specific time – ‘a timeless future’.
Read more about the project and how it came to fruition here
DIRECTED by Romain Tardy & Thomas Vaquié
ARCHITECTURE by Max Berg (1913)
VISUALS by Romain Tardy, Guillaume Cottet
MUSIC composed by Thomas Vaquié
2D / 3D MAPPING by Joanie Lemercier, Romain Tardy
MANAGEMENT & PRODUCTION Nicolas Boritch